Family Is More Than Blood
by HanuuEshe
Summary: Revan's story is more complicated than anyone knows not in the least because she doesn't know it all herself. Edited. Posted from my KotOrFanMedia account.
1. Taris Part One

Carth waited, fiddling with his blaster. Shame they didn't have any upgrades on them; he probably could have spent several hour trying to wrestle them on. 'Interlocking parts my ass' he thought viciously.

Not for the first time, he glanced over at his companion- his _unconscious_ companion; right on cue she began to moan and thrash. With a sigh, Carth moved to pin her down, so she wouldn't rip out her stitches again.

"You know, you better wake up soon," he said conversationally, as she began to struggle. "Not that I have anything against you personally, but unconscious women aren't my thing."

She bucked, wildly, and then twisted so that Carth became unbalanced and fell to the floor with a thud.

"And if you can do that in your sleep, I could use your help !" he yelled. Conversely, the woman seemed calmed by his outburst, and ceased moving.

Carth sighed. That was the most exciting thing he'd done all day; if the Sith didn't find and kill them first, boredom would.

* * *

The next time she started thrashing, Carth noticed that she was wearing an ID tag. 

"Well, duh," he berated himself. "She was on the _Endar Spire_. Of course she has ID."

He unclasped the tag from the chain around her neck. "And now I'm talking to myself. Yay."

He clicked the chip into his datapad, happy that he finally had something to do. The data scrolled across the screen; if it was like the rest of the Republic Files, he could actually get an hour or so of not-sheer-boredom out of -wait...

Names, First: Hanuu

Name, Family: Unknown

Next of Kin: None

Age: 28

Home Planet: Unknown

Education: None

Previous Occupation(s): Smuggler

Weapons training: Basic blaster, blaster rifle and heavy arms, advance melee.

Weapon Hand: Ambidextrous. Proficient in double-bladed weapons

Psych. Eval. Result: No death wish, no addictions, not nearly as haphazard as she appears to be. Extremely well adjusted and amiable for someone with no family ties and employed in such a disreputable line of work.

Fluent in: Basic, Ryl, Lekku, Shyriiwook, Rodese, Huttese, Selkath, Ithorian, Gammorian and Mando'a

Criminal Record: One count of spice smuggling. Charges dropped.

...followed by a short list of medical necessities. Carth frowned down at the datapad, and then at Hanuu.

"Well, at least I know your name. Sorta.' he muttered.

The woman began to thrash in her sleep again.

* * *

Hanuu turned out to be just as stubborn awake as she was asleep. 

"Look, the better we know this place, the better off we are," she explained in an all-too-patient tone that gave Carth the impression that she was actually very _impatiently _waiting for him to come with her.

"We need to find Bastila."

"And we need to be careful about it," she said. Carth raised an eyebrow. "Look, we are on a Sith occupied world. Have you ever been on a Sith occupied world? Don't answer, that was rhetorical." Carth closed his mouth. "The Sith, while to they generally try to make themselves popular, are too fond of cruelty and heavy weapons to ever completely win over the populace. As such, you will find a fair amount of people willing to hide refugees, and even more people willing to turn a blind eye to them. By my guess, those are the people we're more likely to find in the Lower and Under cities; the people up here are going to be a lot less cooperative- and a whole lot more likely to have the supplies we need, and to notice something and try to hand us over to the Sith. We're going to need to find places up here we can hide if that happens, and people we can trust to cover us. That is going to take time- much more time than the three hours we were at it this morning."

Carth huffed. "How long exactly?"

"Hopefully, not more than a week."

"A week !"

"They're people living under an occupation. Even if the Sith are taking pains not to disrupt their daily lives, the threat is still there. The only people who will be openly declaring their allegiances are either insane or the Sith themselves. It will take time, Carth."

"Yes, but...a week! Bastilla could be captured by then!"

"If she managed to escape the crash site in relatively good health, than there's a good chance she found cover and is laying low just like we are. If not, than it is likely that she has already been captured, if not by the Sith, than by one of those swoop gangs Zelka mentioned- or that she's dead.. It looks like we'll need some way to sneak past the guard to get to the other city levels, anyway. Making connections- correctly- will be worth it, no matter what Bastilla's current situation is."

Carth huffed again. "At least tell me we don't have to go back to the cantina, again."

"Sorry Carth, but the cantina_ is_ the best place to find disgruntled pilots willing to try to fly us through the blockade, and malcontents willing to give us information."

Carth gave her a horrified stare.

"Besides, I can get us some much needed credits dueling."

Carth still stared.

"And I promise that I will not let any lonely Sith anywhere near you, with or without Tarisian Ale."

Carth frowned. "I'm not worried about that," he protested.

Hanuu raised an eyebrow.

"Much," he relented sullenly.

The corners of her mouth quirked, "Tell you what, we'll make it quick, eat at one of the vendors, and visit the hospital first, okay?"

"That depends- is it going to take more time?"

"Only a very little more time. And that way we can avoid Sarna."

Carth sighed. "Okay, let's go. But we better find some Sith uniforms soon."

* * *

Carth looked over at Hanuu, who was staring into her box of noddles as though considering drowning herself in them. 

"Something on your mind?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"You look rather...distant." he said, frowning. One syllable non-words were definitely not Hanuu's style.

"I-it's just- what's your family like, Carth?"

Carth blinked in confusion for a moment, before the question finally hit him. He froze.

"Dead." he answered finally, because it was the simplest answer.

"Well...I'm not sure what my family is," Hanuu sighed. "I...left my planet when I was eleven at the...behest of my father. I'm not sure he's still alive- actually, I'm pretty sure he's dead, and even if he was, I have the impression that the life he would be living wouldn't be much better than death. My mother smuggled herself offplanet when I was seven. She was pregnant with twins. I met up with her later, just before I turned sixteen. She lived just long enough to tell me I had two sisters before some schutta murdered her. I never met them, and I'm not entirely sure what they look like, so I've been trying to track them down through their names."

Carth winced. "That must suck," he said lamely.

Hanuu snorted ruefully. "Joleen Fiarotta."

"Huh?" Carth asked, before he placed the name. She was an engineer, an extraordinarily gifted one, and young too. She was only 21, early acceptance into everything. She had a twin serving on another ship as a captain. Zelka had her in a kolto tank in his hospital- she wasn't expected to last the night.

"Was she..?"

"One of the twins, yes,"

"Oh."

Well...you couldn't say anything to that, could you?

"It's okay, really...I guess," she sighed. "I didn't know her, not even as a shipmate. I didn't even realize she was on the _Endar Spire _until I saw the ID on the tank. It's just...something I'll never be able to fix. All of the people I've considered family aren't related to me- most aren't even human. I always wanted to try, just to see what it would be like."

Carth felt a pang of sympathy, and before he could stop himself he slung an arm around her. She started, then relaxed against him with a mournful sigh. Suddenly, he felt the urge to tell her about Dustil, about his search, about giving up, about the pieces that had died inside him when he did. Instead, he said "Your other sister is captain of the _Nova Typhoon_. It's a good ship- they've been in a few skirmishes and always come out on top."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Binda Fiarotta, right?"

"Yeah. What's she like?"

"Stubborn and smart. As a lieutenant, she came up with an idea to destroy two Sith cruisers with a single torpedo- it's the reason she was given command."

"Two Sith cru- she managed to maneuver one ship so that it was head for the other, and then caused a catastrophic explosion in it's engine, so it'd ram into the other one?"

Carth frowned down at her, "Well, I see it runs in the family."

Hanuu frowned, then looked up at him "Huh...that's kind of creepy."

"She is your sister. Maybe brilliant tactical strategies are in your genes?"

"Yeah, maybe...but it's still creepy. Only, in a good way."

He chuckled, and then stopped abruptly as the memory of Dustil, laughing his mother's laugh at a joke only he and Carth found funny flashed through his mind.

"Family's like that. Creepy in a good way," he stood up abruptly, stretching to cover his momentary lapse. "Come on beautiful, we're burning daylight."

Hanuu stood, then frowned at him, "Did you just call me 'beautiful'?" she demanded.

Carth shot her a grin, and began to walk briskly towards the northern upper-city.

"Hey- come back here you hairless Wookie! You can_not_ say stuff like that and the just go jogging off into the sunset!"

He turned around the answer her, but didn't stop moving forward, and as a result, ended up jogging into some drunks instead.

* * *

Later, Carth couldn't pinpoint exactly when it happened, only that it did. 

He trusted her. Completely. Knew she wasn't going to shoot him in the back, betray him, sell him out...she was safe.

After years of paranoia, the revelation felt strange. Creepy. It put him on edge.

And Hanuu, damn that woman, picked up on it.

"Just out of curiosity, what's eating you now?" she demanded, watching Mission lie on the bed. She had fallen unconscious it the sewers...too many rakghouls and slavers for even a plucky, time-tried teenagers to deal with. Zaalbar paced restlessly before them, advanced medpack in hand, waiting for her to revive.

"Nothing," he answered shortly.

Hanuu rolled her eyes and snorted derisively. "Right, that would be why you grimacing and stomping all over the place. And then taking out your _nonexistent_ frustrations on poor Mission."

Carth sulked guiltily. Really, he hadn't been trying to provoke Mission, even after he knew her aversion to being referred to as a child. And then those slavers had come out of nowhere...and wait.

"You're manipulating me!" he exclaimed."You're using the fact that Mission was hurt to get me to talk to you!"

"No, I'm telling you what I see," she said blandly, and suddenly Carth remembered that she was a _smuggler_, that she was used to negotiating price and dragging information and host of other things that involved manipulation and sleight of hand. Relieved, he could feel his trust in her waning.

"Oh, don't start that again," she moaned suddenly. Carth started.

"What?"

"The 'I don't trust anyone and she's a smuggler so I really can't trust her' thing. Just so you know, the reason the Republic caught up with me was because I was doing my _first_ spice run," Carth, blinked, surprised. "Before that, my career consisted mostly of smuggling food and medical supplies to blockaded worlds and places run over by the Sith and the Mandalorians and then taking the refugees away from them, so save it for someone else."

She sat hunched over, mouth set in a tight line and eyes staring straight ahead. Carth reluctantly identified the uncomfortable twisting sensation in his gut as guilt, and he struggled with himself for a few minutes before he managed to wrestle it into a much safer irritation.

"Why do you even care?"

"You've said that already."

"It was rhetorical before. I actually want an answer now," he bit back.

"Why do I care? Hm...I wonder, could it have something to do with the fact that we're stuck on this force-forsaken rock together? That we have to actually be able to rely on each other? That you can't really be watching my back if you're too busy watching your own?"

Carth blinked. He hadn't expected that. "You can trust me," he said, stupidly.

"And you've said that already too. Since you aren't going down the rhetorical path this time, let me tell you: I don't care if you think you can be trusted, as long as you're going to be scrutinizing my movements and looking for some sign that I'm going to betray you, you're a liability. Because when people go looking for something, they normally find it. And you're so paranoid that I have no problems imaging you doing something stupid that ends up killing me because you think I'm going to give you up to the Sith !"

"I wouldn't kill you," he said. She raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't kill you !"

"If you thought I was working for the Sith, you wouldn't kill me?" she deadpanned incredulously.

"I...but...I don't-I'm not going to kill you!" he spluttered.

Zaalbar gave a low growl, and even if he didn't speak the Wookie's language, Carth could tell that he was very displeased.

"Alright, Zaalbar. If Mission wakes up before we come back, give me a call, okay?" she tucked the Echani ritual brand she had bought into the loop of the waist of her fiber armor and grabbed Carth by the wrist.

"Hey, what's going on? Where're we going?" he asked.

"The Lower City. We need a place to talk, and by talk, I mean yell, and we can't do that while Mission's still recovering. Now come on "

She dragged him out of the apartments, across the Upper City, and to the elevators. It was dark, and between the black of her armor, the bronze of her hair and the chocolate of her skin, she seemed to melt into the night; Sith patrols kept bumping into her, but they all backed away without question in the face of her snarling tone. The elevator guard almost wet himself. Carth found himself wondering where the ruthlessness had come from; she was normally almost easy going. If she could cover up part of her personality, how much else could she be hiding...

"Oh frack," he moaned softly.

"Just hold on one more moment, Carth," Hanuu soothed, dragging him into one of the lower city apartments. "Okay, spill."

"You're right," he sighed. "I am looking for reasons not to trust you, and ever time I find something that construed as...sith-like, I trust you even less."

Hanuu sighed. "Well, at least there wasn't yelling."

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment, before she heaved a sigh a said gently, "Look, Carth, as a very wise old Ithorian once told me, if you don't trust anyone, you'll have to spend most of your time trying to get them to justify their actions; most of the time, you'll find their reasons sound, and feel like an idiot too. And most of the time, the only thing that will come from it is wasted time. And while, yes, there are very little guarantees in that statement, most of them are there because no one can get along with everyone _all_ the time; each individual has their own set of reasoning and their own sense of honor, and it's inevitable that it'll clash with yours sometime. But, generally, people are trustworthy. Just because some of the people you knew were opportunistic sons of karath hounds doesn't mean everyone is. Or even most people."

Carth gave her an inquisitive look. She shrugged. "Actually, what he said was much more coherent, but I was paraphrasing."

Carth gave a long slow exhale, and then asked, "So...wise old Ithorian?"

"Yeah... I spent my formative years on Corescant. Lots and lots of aliens came to the restaurant where I worked- I made friends with most of the regulars. That's why I said most of the people I consider my family aren't human," she explained.

"You worked in a restaurant? You weren't always a rough and tumble smuggler?" Carth asked, more to give himself time to mull things over than anything else.

"Yeah; I was a waitress at 'The Puddle Jumper'. Nice place; the two guys who owned kept arguing about whether or not to change the name to 'The Gateship', and they had way more UST between them than was healthy, but it was a lot of fun and it payed well. After a year or so I took up a second job in a museum, and after that..."

"After that...what?"

"I spent a few years being respected as a respectable...person. And then I started smuggling. The Republic caught up to me, I signed on to the Endar Spire, and...here we are."

Carth nodded, not really listening.

"Look at me, Carth," she said decisively. Carth did. "I may not share your unconditional love of the Republic, but I do have an unconditional love for my soul. I have my morals, and my limits, and the Sith are so far removed from those they might as well be in another galaxy. I'm not going to betray you to them, or to anyone especially not while we're stuck on this craphole being hunted by Malak, and I won't even after we escape."

Carth bit his lip.

"I like you," she added. "And generally speaking, when I like someone, handing them over to the Sith is the last thing on my mind. And if you can't trust me yet- well, don't worry. I'll make you trust me if it's the last thing I do."

And Carth believed her.


	2. Taris Part Two

"Oh. My. FORCE!" Hanuu exclaimed as she tasted the special before-race dinner Carth had brought back to the Hidden Bek hideout.

"This is the best stuff I've ever had!" Mission shrieked.

Zaalbar gave a shrieking grunt that might have been agreement, and may have been an expression of his profound desire to pee.

"Er . . . you've never had fried loligo before?" Carth asked, taken aback. Yeah, it wasn't the cheapest food around, and it certainly wasn't the worst, but everybody had some at parties, birthdays, weddings . . .

"_This_ is _fried loligo_?" Mission asked, awed.

"Yeah, you've really never-"

"Holy crap, Carth, how much did you spend?" Hanuu interjected, looking horrified. "This stuff is expensive on Manaan, getting it out here must have cost a fortune; getting it during a blockade must have been next to impossible."

"It was nothing we couldn't afford," Carth said, hoping that she wouldn't explode when she noticed the missing combat suit. "And besides, you're racing tomorrow. We can splurge a little."

Hanuu shot him a grin. "You're going to spoil me, Carth. I am never going to be able to eat those military rations cheerfully again," Hanuu lamented, before shoveling another fork-full into her mouth.

"Well, good," Carth declared. "It was damned unnatural for you to be able to do so in the first place."

"Why? What's so wrong with military rations?" Mission questioned. "They're filling."

Zaalbar shuffled off to the bathroom.

* * *

In Carth's experience, the more leaders you stuck together in a room, the worse your problems would get, and the more time it took to fix them. So, as Bastila walked into the room, he figured he should probably get the whole power struggle thing over with; she was not going to be in charge, he was, because he had the most expertise and really, she was little more than a child.

And then Hanuu took over. Smoothly, with very little fuss. Just another little thing about her that made Carth's hair stick up on end; very few people should be able to do that, and even fewer should be able to do it after being a solitary smuggler for years.

Of course, there _were_ those mysterious pre-smuggling years where she was a 'respectable respected person' . . .

"Bastila, 'fresher's clear. Why don't you go wash the sewage off?" Hanuu said. Bastila huffed, but walked in quickly with a slightly relived look on her face. Hanuu walked over to where he was leaning against the wall. "Carth, they can feel you brooding on Alderaan. What's up?"

"Oh I'm not that obvious, am I?" he asked plaintively.

"Carth, those storm clouds circling your head are about to cause a hurricane. Spill it."

Carth rolled his eyes. "Nice."

"Okay, spill it please. Now."

Carth laughed and rolled his eyes again. "Oh come on, you can do better than that."

"Carth my bestest friend in the whole wide galaxy, would you please share whatever it is that is troubling you with me?" she said in a high-pitched girly voice.

Carth stared at her in horror. "Sure, if you promise to never say anything like that ever again."

Hanuu rolled her eyes. "Well, don't ask me to be nice then. I'm a naturally stubborn and duplicitous and a petty person, and it wouldn't end well."

"Oh, come off it, you're nice."

"Yeah, I'm just overflowing with altruism here." She huffed.

"Newsflash: you kind of are."

"Am not."

"Are too!"

"Am-"

"Hanuu, you've given no less than three hundred credits to perfect strangers. If that doesn't smack of altruism . . ."

"That wasn't altruistic; that was just . . . being helpful."

"Ah . . . but what is altruism if not being helpful?"

Hanuu snorted. "People who are altruistic believe that by doing one good deed, they can change something big . . . a life, a world, the way the galaxy works. I have no such misconceptions anymore."

Carth turned to look at her, but she turned away, flushing slightly.

"I think I got into this conversation by wondering aloud what was eating you?" She said finally.

Carth looked at her for a moment, before giving an internal shrug and filing away that little tidbit for later . . . like when she tried to drag him onto another uncomfortable personal 'talk'. "Oh, it's nothing really; just the usual."

"Force, Carth, what am I doing wrong now?" she moaned.

Carth chuckled slightly. "It's not so much what you're doing so much as what you did."

Hanuu planted her face into the palm of her hand. Carth smirked.

"It's not one of my paranoid things I promise." She shot him an incredulous look between her fingers. "Really! I was just thinking about your mysterious past as a 'respected respectable person' . . . "

Hanuu froze, calmly removed her hand from her face, and Carth let his voice trail off. They looked at each other uncomfortably for a moment, and then looked away.

"Touchy subject, I take it," Carth asked, looking at the wall.

"Very," she said dryly.

There was an awkward moment of silence. "Carth," she sighed softly, looking down at her wringing hands. "Carth . . . look, I have no right to ask you this after the third degree I put you through, but . . . could you let this be? At least for a short while? I promise, if we're still together after we finally get off this rock, and you still want to know, I'll tell you, but for right now . . ."

"Okay . . . I understand. But just to warn you," he placed and hand on her shoulder, and, startled she blinked up at him. "This means you're not going to be able to get rid of me until well after we _do _leave this rock."

Hanuu laughed impulsively "Good. That means I'll have plenty of opportunities to dig up some more of your secrets."

Carth groaned, and Hanuu laughed again. Suddenly, there was a light coughing noise from in front of them. Bastila had apparently finished with the 'fresher, and was looking at them with a very peculiar expression on her face, one that was mixture of horrified fascination, vehement disapproval, and utter surprise.

"The 'fresher's clear, Carth, if you would like to make use of it," she said.

"No thanks, I'm good," Carth replied.

"Well, if we're all good, we should get going," Hanuu said, standing up. Next to her, Carth did the same. "We may have found you, Bastila, but now we have to find some way to get off Taris."

* * *

Hanuu stalked into the room with the tightness of someone who was very, very, angry and wanted to explode; behind her Bastila marched over to the workbench with a haughty rigidity that more or less screamed self-righteousness.

"I take it 'girls' day out' didn't go too well?" Carth commented, watching Mission slink in behind them, hunched over and miserable.

Hanuu sighed. "No."

"Feel like talking about it?"

"Not really, but . . . there's a possibility that this may cause problems later," she said in a low voice. "Bastila wants to be in charge; and not just that, but she wants to be the _only_ one in charge. And she has all these opinions about how everyone should be . . ."

"Everyone's entitled to their own opinion," he said blandly, watching Bastila, who seemed to be taking an awfully long time to upgrade her lightsaber.

"I know, and really, sometimes she has good ideas, it's just . . . she's kid, really, a _Jedi_ kid to be sure, but still . . . she has a lot to learn, and as long as she's so inflexible, I'm afraid she . . . won't. I mean, she flipped at Mission for buying loligo instead of weaponry. If such a little thing is going to make her lose her focus, then what's she going to do if you and I decide on a battle plan or ship's course that she doesn't agree with? I mean, even if she isn't the wisest person here, she is very powerful. If she really wanted to, she could cause problems."

Carth turned away from Bastila for a moment to stare at Hanuu in frank astonishment. "You sound like you don't trust her . . . like you suspect her of something."

"I do," Hanuu replied wearily. "Maybe you've just rubbed off on me, maybe I'm just imagining things, but still . . ."

Carth started as the sound of the door to the 'fresher slamming shut rang through the apartment. Bastila was no where to be seen.

"Well, that's my cue to go get dinner," Hanuu said sadly. Carth shot her a look, before it hit him that-

"You knew she was listening."

"Yeah, hence my buying dinner. You brought dinner when you were being your normal stubborn and paranoid self and felt bad about it; now I have to go buy dinner because I was my normal stubborn and duplicitous self and feel bad about it. I have to; it's tradition now."

Carth snorted. "Okay, just answer one question; why didn't you just tell her all that to her face?"

"Because she wouldn't have listened. She would have passed it off as an attempt to control her, as she feels the Council and every other adult figure in her life has, rather than a valid criticism," Hanuu explained. "By 'overhearing' me expressing those same criticisms with someone else, she could be sure that I actually felt that way."

"So by manipulating her- and me- she could tell you were sincere?" Carth asked incredulously.

Hanuu laughed. "Yes, although it wasn't a matter of sincerity; it was a matter of getting the message across."

Carth mulled this over for a few minutes, and then nodded hesitantly. "Okay, I guess; but next time give me a warning, will you?"

"Sure, flyboy. I'll blink twice if I'm being manipulative and I want you to play along, okay?"

"Fine by me; just don't make a habit of it," Carth order, rolling his eyes. "Now go. You have seafood to buy. Expensive seafood."

With a roll of her eyes and a wave, Hanuu left in search of loligo.

* * *

Their last week on Taris past rather slowly for Carth. The rainy season was upon them, and the ceaseless drizzling kept him indoors and drove him insane. Hanuu was bringing Bastila with her everywhere now, and he hadn't stepped outside since they had purchased T3. What's worse, the droid had come back almost a day ago, and if Mission's translation was correct, than Hanuu and Bastila had gone running off to an Exchange safe house with that _Mandalorian_ mercenary. And he was stuck here, listening to pattering of raindrops and the distant rumbling of thunder . . .

Wait . . .

Carth rushed to the window, watching the explosions of light in the distance, growing ever nearer.

No . . .

"Everyone get down!" he screamed, as the first volley hit their section of the Upper City, ripping through the droid shop across the way like it was made of butter.

The next few minutes were agony for Carth. He had always wondered, if he was on Telos when it was attacked, if he would have been able to make a difference. Now he knew the truth; he wouldn't have been able to change a damned thing. Fire rained upon Taris, and there was nothing he could do except duck and cover, and make sure everyone in reach was doing the same. It would provide no protection if one of the torpedoes actually hit their apartment, but it would protect them, somewhat, from the fallout of a nearby impact. Possibly. Provided it didn't hit too close, or cause the entire building to crash, or any other of a thousand possibilities . . .

There was a deafening bang, and the entire building shuddered. Next to him, he heard Mission whimpering, and Zaalbar making a comforting sort of snuffling noise. Then there was an eery groan, and Carth watched with horror as the side of the apartment building began to peel away, and fall into the abyss that had appeared right outside their window.

"Well, I suppose that's then, isn't it?" Carth whispered to himself. The next volley that hit would tear through to remains of their building like tissue paper. They'd die, all of them.

Well, he hoped Hanuu had managed to find a way out in time. Then maybe she could save Bastila, get her back to the Jedi, and they could get her back to the Fleet . . . maybe she'd even find her sister.

That'd be fair. They'd both lost family members to circumstances beyond their control; at least one of them should be able to regain them. One of them...

He really wished he had gotten a chance to kill Saul, though. He really really hated him, not in the least because he was probably the one ordering the destruction of Taris right now. He wondered if planet-killing was one of his hobbies, if he kept track. First Telos, and now Taris . . .

He should have kept looking for Dustil. He's just a kid... well, he _was_ just a kid. He'd be sixteen now, almost grown up. Carth shouldn't have given up on him, shouldn't have clung only to revenge and left everything else in the dust . . .

"Carth! Carth!" a voice screamed. "Canderous see if you can get us closer!"

He looked up. Hanuu was standing on the open ramp of a small, sleek ship hovering above the chasm, moving slowly, shakily toward them. 'Ah, so that's the ship the Mandalorian was talking about' he thought, before reality sunk in.

"No, don't!" he cried. Hanuu gave him an incredulous look that conveyed the impressed that she thought he was nuts.

"The building's just about to come down, it'll collapse right on top of the ship!" he explained. As if to emphasize his point, the ceiling began to groan and sag.

For a moment, Hanuu looked at the ceiling with dread, and Carth was afraid he'd have to convince her to leave them behind, when suddenly her face lit up. "Carth, get the swoop!"

"What?"

"The swoop. It can't fly long distance, but it should be fine for a few meters," Hanuu explained hurriedly. Carth ran, leaving the apartment doors open so that he could fly the swoop right in.

"Okay, now, Mission, climb on behind Carth. Carth back up as much as you can, go as fast as you can, and pull up on the ramp," she ordered when he returned. "And don't crash."

Zaalbar plunked Mission behind him, and she immediately grabbed him tightly around the waist.

He started the swoop again, backed into the hallway, and then revved up the engine. They made it, just barely landing on the ramp, and almost crashing into Hanuu, who flipped nimbly out of the way just in time.

"Get Mission inside, and then get in the cockpit," she hissed, pulling him off the swoop, and handing him Mission, who seemed to be in shock. "I'll go get Zaalbar and the droid."

"But-"

"I'm better at riding a swop than you are, and you damn well better be a better pilot than that Mandalorian or we're screwed," she growled. He opened his mouth to protest. "Move it Onasi!"

And with that, she shoved him into the back of the ship and jumped on the swoop, backing it back into the apartment. Carth grimaced, deposited Mission on the couch, and ran to the front of the ship, where Ordo was sitting in the cockpit with an expression of deepest concentration.

"Move over," he said. "I'll fly."

"Shove it, Republic," the Mandalorian grunted. Carth looked at him incredulously.

"Look, the planet's coming down around our ears, and I can already tell I'm a much better pilot than you are, and we've still gotta get past that blockade-"

"You will let Carth into the pilot's seat," Bastila interjected, her eyes flashing. Looking dazed, Ordo stood, and lumbered into the rear compartment.

"Thanks," Carth said tersely, sitting down. "Do me a favor, let me know the second I can leave? And keep the Mandalorian out of here?"

"Will do," Bastila replied.

Carth waited, and waited, and waited . . . minutes stretched by like hours. Why they hell weren't they finished yet?'

"Bastila?"

"She's almost done, Carth, just a few more moments!" Carth closed his eyes and concentrated; suddenly, he could hear everything that was happening in the common area, he could hear Mission, still sobbing quietly, and Zaalbar's comforting groans. Bastila was hissing reproaches out of the side of her mouth to Ordo, who was hissing his own right back as he helped a Twi'lek woman into the ship. Zelka, was quietly checking over Mission; the janitor was sitting next to him, hyperventilating, an Ithorian was humming to his mate, two children clung to each other crying, while the parents of one tried to soothe them both, Larim stood silently in a corner and T3 bleeped concernedly next to him. His eyes snapped open.

"Is she trying to fit the entire bloody planet in this ship?" Carth roared.

"That's what I said!" yelled Ordo.

"She's finished, go!" screamed Bastila, and Carth closed the ramp and launched them into space.

* * *

"You know, that was incredibly stupid of you, right?" Carth murmured much later, when they had put down on Datooine, and everyone was beginning to slip off in twos and threes. Hanuu continued to wave at the human family, and the extra kid that had been wandering around their apartment complex.

"I couldn't just leave them there," she hissed out of the side of her mouth. "They'd've died!"

"We could've died too," Carth pointed out.

"But we didn't," she replied, with a note of finality in her voice. "How's Mission doing?"

"Much better I think, although I might just be getting that impression because she's asleep. Zaalbar's looking after her right now, and I'll try and talk with her, after she wakes up," Carth replied. "What did the council say?"

"They think I might be eligible to train as a Jedi."

Carth stared at her. "Like, you'd become a Jedi."

"They think. I'm Force-sensitive, or so they claim. Apparently enough to overlook the fact that I'm a good sixteen years too old to be considered for training," she muttered.

Carth bit his tongue.

"That's good, isn't it? I mean, I'd probably be able to help more people as a Jedi, I guess," she said doubtfully.

"Probably," Carth echoed.

"I mean why wouldn't it be?" she asked.

"Remind me to tell you about a guy named Zayne Carrick one of these days," Carth said blithely.

"Zayne . . . wasn't he that guy who killed all the Padawans on Taris?" Hanuu asked.

"He's the guy they framed. Turned out there was some sort of secret society of Jedi Consulars who had this vision that he or some of his fellow Padawans may someday become a Sith. So their own masters killed them, and when Zayne showed up late, they decided to pin it on him instead."

Hanuu let out a long, low whistle. "So, not all Jedi are good, eh?"

"Hanuu, I don't think you'll have much to worry about that all that much. Yeah, you can be pretty darn manipulative, but everything else you do more than compensates for it. You'd be a good Jedi, I think. One of the ones who would give people like Zayne the benefit of the doubt."

"If I undergo training, it'll take a while. I may be here for months, or even longer," she said. "So, if you wanna get back to the fleet, Zelka's arranged transport. It leaves for Corellia at ten tomorrow morning."

Carth looked at her, then back at the Hawk, then at Hanuu again. "Nah, I think I'll stay- help you settle in, keep Ordo from scaring the Jedi, try and get Bastila to lighten up. After Taris, I think the Fleet might be too boring for me anyway. And I still have to figure out how you managed to be respectable." 'Plus', he added to himself, 'I have my orders to stay with Bastila, keep an eye on her; I just got the confirmation from the Admiral herself, they still stand.'

Hanuu smiled, surprised and delighted. "Really?"

Carth forced a smile on his face. "Yeah, I mean, how bad could it be?"


	3. The Enclave

Seven months later, Carth was experiencing the full extent of how bad living on Datooine could be.

"Hey, Carth? You alright?"

Carth blinked, and rolled over on his bunk so that he was no longer staring at the ceiling. "I'm bored out of my skull."

"Yeah, I figured as much. You worried Mission. She said she and Zaalbar were playing with a maintenance droid in here earlier today and the only thing you did was watch it go back and forth for hours. It really creeped her out."

"It was more engaging than the wall. Which was more engaging than listen to the 'Council's Wisdom', no offense."

"None taken- but not all of the Master's are like that. Zhar is pretty fun to talk to, and Dorak has some really interesting stuff to talk about. Speaking of Jedi Masters, my latest assignment for them is to go hunting for kath hounds. Feel like joining up?"

"Hell yes!" Carth replied, jumping to his feet. "When are we leaving?"

"Now," Hanuu said laughingly. "Go grab your blasters, flyboy, I'll meet you by the enclave exit after I change in something more flexible."

Carth broke several records in speed and agility as he dashed over to the enclave entrance, nearly bumping into the crabby Jedi woman who had held up Hanuu their first day here.

"Sorry," he muttered, knowing that he was sporting a huge grin and therefore didn't look sorry at all.

"It is not an issue. I have... other things on my mind," she replied apologetically.

Carth gave her a sympathetic smile and dashed over to where Zaalbar and was waiting. He was surprised to note that instead of his bowcaster, he was wielding the Echani Ritual Brand that Hanuu had brought in Kebla Yurt's shop on Taris so long ago.

"So, I take it you're going out with us?" Carth asked.

Zaalbar grunted in what Carth thought may be agreement.

"And I take it that was a yes?"

Zaalbar snorted, but this time Carth wasn't sure if it was acknowledgment or derision.

"Yeah, sorry. I realize after almost half a year of hanging around, I probably should have _some_ idea what you're saying, but I cannot do languages. It was part of the reason I joined the militia on Telos in the first place; you got an exemption from the class of your choice, and Advance Ryl looked pretty scary to me."

This time, Carth had no problem figuring out what Zaalbar was saying; the Wookie was clearly laughing at him.

"Yeah, well...it's funny, how things turn out, isn't it? You join the militia so you don't have to stare at Mr. Bisbo's fake lekku, and twenty years down the road your planet's destroyed and the fate of the galaxy seems to rest with you, a smuggler turned Sentinel, a spoiled Jedi kid, and Mandalorian mercenary, a teenaged Twi'lek and a taciturn Wookie."

Zaalbar sniffed.

"Yeah, well, I'm glad you're here too," Carth replied, pretty sure that was the sentiment Zaalbar was professing. "If I were the only sane person here, I'd go nuts."

Zaalbar laughed at him again as Hanuu rounded the corner, bumping in to the crabby Jedi again. She helped her up, laughingly, and the sobered as they exchanged a few words. She left with a pensive expression on her face.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

"Only for the past seven months," Carth replied. "How long is Jedi training supposed to take, anyway?"

"About twelve years," Hanuu replied glibly.

Carth let out a long, low whistle and Zaalbar growled appreciatively. Hanuu grinned. "Well, as much as I'd like to believe that it's simply my superior talents, I think it's as much a necessity as anything else. The Sith are targeting the Jedi, and they're losing numbers fast. At least part of this whole accelerated training thing is part of that."

"Yeah...but I mean, what is there to learn?" Carth asked. "I mean, there's lightsaber fighting, and I've seen you with blades, you're spectacular..."

"Lightsabers are different from melee weapons in that the blades actually don't generate any drag. This make them faster, but without the Force, it'd be next to impossible to tell offhand how long your blade is and at what angle you're pointing it. You would not believe how long it took me to learn enough not to lop my own foot off."

"Alright, so you have lightsaber fighting. And then what... channeling the Force? Couldn't you do that before training, to a certain extent?"

"Only in the same way you can control your adrenal glands."

"Huh?"

"The Force was unconsciously enhancing my ability, kind of like adrenaline enhances your abilities when you get into a firefight. Being able to channel the Force is a bit like learning to control your adrenal glands, so that you get however much boost you need at the moment you need it. It's very strange, controlling stuff you always thought was automatic. Very difficult to do, too."

"Which why it normally takes over a decade to do it," Carth finished.

Zaalbar chuffed a question.

"Yeah, you also spend a lot of time with philosophy. That was probably the worst of all," Hanuu sighed.

"How so?" Carth asked.

"Well... philosophy lessons go like this; Master Zhar gives you a scenario, you figure out how you would respond, given the situation, the two of you argue over whether or not your chosen path is in keeping with the Jedi Code, you meditate on the lessons you learn."

"What's so frustrating about that?"

"It's so slow!" Hanuu replied exasperatedly. "It always seems that if he could tell me just a little bit more, I'd be able to figure something really big out. Master Dorak's history lessons are bit like that, too."

"Hey you!" called an angry looking man from the courtyard, and for the first time in over half a year, Carth had something to worry about again.

* * *

"Okay-this is surreal," Carth remarked.

"Which part?" Hanuu asked dryly. "The one with the droid that pre-dates the Republic, or the one were this place may hold the secrets to the Sith's ascension to power?"

"I was actually talking about the fact that no one thought to go in here before." he commented dryly. Besides him, Bastila shot him a dirty look.

"The Council believed it to be a burial ground, and that allowing the souls of the dead to rest was the most respectful course of action," she sniffed, purposefully looking away from where Hanuu was doing a quick search of the Jedi body they had found.

"Yeah, but shouldn't they have been able to sense something...wrong with this place? I mean," he rubbed his face tiredly. "I'm not Force sensitive and this place makes _my_ skull itch. If this is the source of the Sith's power, shouldn't somebody have felt something?"

"I don't think this is the source of the Sith's power," Hanuu said slowly, still crouched over Nemo's corpse. "I have the impression that this is just the beginning. Whatever they found here lead them on a journey that pushed them over the edge, made them evil enough to use the power of whatever it is that they found."

Bastila looked at her. "But surely, they must have fallen to the darkside already Why else would they not heed the council's wisdom?"

"Not listening to the Council doesn't make you evil. Arrogant, maybe, impassioned definitely, but not evil. They weren't Jedi anymore, no, and I think they knew that, but they weren't Sith. Not yet anyway."

Bastila and Carth both stared at her, puzzled. Hanuu looked up at them with a slight grimace. "Or, at least, that's the gist of what I got from our vision," she finished, standing up abruptly. "It looks like whatever killed him hit him with carbonite first. You might want to activate your energy shields. Carth, you suck with melee weapons, whatever it is we have to fight, just shoot at it from the doorway, okay?"

"Gee, thanks."

"Don't mention it."

* * *

Kashyyyk. Korriban. Manaan. Tatooine. They had to go to all of them, probably end up doing something dangerous and potentially lethal on each one after what would probably end up being far too long a time. The fate of the galaxy rested with it.

Well, at least he'd get to fly. He was starting to miss that.

"So the fate of the galaxy rests with us flying around on an interplanetary scavenger hunt?" Canderous asked incredulously.

"You can just stay here if you like," Hanuu said. "I'm sure the Council would appreciate it if you took care of those kath hounds for them."

"No, no, I'm going," the Mandalorian added quickly. "It'll probably involve lots of fighting and I don't want to miss out."

"Good," Hanuu replied curtly. "Now, as I was saying, this is going to be pretty dangerous, so if anyone wants to leave, now's your chance."

Mission gave her a fairly condescending look, something Carth suspected she had picked up from Bastila. "Yeah, like we're going to leave now."

"Okay, I just have to check. I don't want any to come who doesn't want to," Hanuu replied. "Now, as to where we're going next... I'd like to go to Kashyyyk."

Zaalbar gave a growl that could only be described as surprised.

"Yes, I know that's your planet. The truth is that's part of why I want to go there. Unless I'm very much mistaken, none of us here have ties on any of the other planets we need to go too, and I'd feel better knowing something about the situation we're in our first time off."

Zaalbar gave a mournful yowl.

"I know; Mission said something to that effect. Believe me, I have no tolerance for slavers. They won't bother us while we're there, and they'll probably end up regretting it if they try."

Carth started at the sudden steeliness in her tone.

"Don't do anything rash," Bastila cautioned.

"Me? Do something rash? Why Bastila, what gave you the idea I had the capacity for acting rashly?" Hanuu asked innocently.

Carth snorted. "I'm pretty sure she got that impression sometime between the swoop race and you picking up the Mandalorian here."

"Oh?" Hanuu asked. "What about you?"

"I got that impression at the Sith party you had us gate crash," Carth replied, although, if he was completely honest, she was more of a coldly calculating person than a rash one. Just, he sometimes got the impression that she had figured out how to twist the equations so that she got a different, but more accurate, answer than the rest of them. Much more quickly, too.

"Hey! I got us an invitation to that thing fair and square!" Hanuu protested.

"You went to party on a Taris without me?" Mission asked, looking disappointed.

"A _Sith_ party!" Bastila screeched.

"Must have been some sweet entertainment there," Canderous commented. "They certainly confiscated enough ale."

"I'd noticed," Carth said dryly. "Everyone but us passed out after about five minutes."

"Don't freak out Bastila," Hanuu said soothingly. "We needed to get a uniform so we could pass the guard to the Lower City, and to get a uniform we had to get close to an unconscious Sith."

"Oh. So no wild dancing Twi'lek stories from you then, eh?" Canderous asked, shoulders slumped.

"No," Carth answered, disgusted, as the crew of the _Ebon Hawk _dissolved into chaos.

* * *

They left early the next morning; Mission and Canderous slept through the entire take-off, and Bastila and Juhani had stayed awake only long enough to make sure they actually left the planet, but he could here Zaalbar snorting to himself as he cleaned the Echani ritual brand Hanuu had given him, and Hanuu herself had settled into the copilot's seat, busily reading one of the datapads she had wheedled out of Master Dorak. Carth entered the hyperspace coordinates to Kashyyyk, and sat back to let the navicomputer do the work for him.

Piloting was fun, but with the advent of navicomputers, there wasn't much to do after the coordinates were punched. Normally, he'd just try to surreptitiously watch a holovid or something, but he got the impression that his copilot would catch on if he did that.

He fiddled with the controls for a while, and then stared intently at the screen readouts, before finally staring off right into space, thinking.

As...unconventional as their mission was, it was probably more important than all the maneuvers he'd executed since before the Sith Wars had started. And it was nice to be doing something, anything, other than staring blankly at the ceiling of the _Hawk_ on Datooine. But still... the Jedi were hiding something. Something big. He may have gone out of his way to avoid the Masters while he was on Datooine, but even he got the impression that they knew something important that they were purposefully hiding from them; all of them, but especially Hanuu, and, by proxy, him. While he could understand the need for secrecy surrounding a mission of galactic importance, why were they keeping secrets from the people who were supposed to do said mission? Although to be fair, it didn't seem like Bastila was being kept out of the loop, although he really couldn't see why they should pick her of all people to tell whatever little Jedi secrets they were withholding from everyone else. I mean, if anyone was in charge, it was Hanuu; shouldn't they be telling her?

And why the hell was Hanuu here anyway? I mean, yeah, she was talented, and kind of their CO, but she was a Padawan, not a Master, not even a Knight. Why would the Council send her on such a mission with only two fellow Padawans to help her in the Jedi department- one of which had recently fallen to the Dark Side? Didn't that seem a little too...risky?

"You okay Carth?" Hanuu asked.

"Huh?"

"You've been very quiet lately. Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. I just don't like being kept out of the loop, that's all..."

* * *

It was night when, three days later, they landed on Kashyyyk. The forest towered above them, even at the level just below canopy, where the air was thin and crisp. He couldn't imagine how the shy would look when the descended to the Shadowlands. They probably wouldn't be able to see anything...Carth hoped Hanuu wouldn't want him there. He might freak out if he looked up at the sky and saw nothing but blackness again.

Hanuu didn't seem too inclined to get into the Shadowlands, however. They spent their first day on Kashyyyk within the confines of the Czerka outpost, chatting with the employees, none of whom, strangely enough, seemed to have anything to do with the massive slaving operation they all knew was taking place only several hundred meters below them. They did make contact with another kind of slaver, Eli, who seemed to think keeping his 'pal' Matton in a state of servitude to settle an unspecified amount of debt was simply playing fair. They headed back to the ship after twelve mind-numbing hours of talking with the various underlings. Oddly enough, it seemed Hanuu found these talks entrancing- she had practically the same one with everyone she met. When Carth questioned her about this, she merely replied 'Before now, I'd never met an Ithorian I didn't like' which was no answer at all.

Things didn't get much better the next morning, when Hanuu anounced that the trek to the Shadowlands would take days, and they would have to pass by a Wookie village about midway to it. The path would be infested with krinath and other dangerous beasts, which they would have to fight along the way.

"Also, from what Zaalbar told me, a large congregation of outsiders won't win us any friends. Juhani, I'd like for you to come with Zaalbar and me. They'll be a lot of fighting, and as our only Jedi Guardian, that should by right up your alley."

The Cathar blinked, seemingly surprised that her presence was being acknowledged. "I...vould be honored."

"Good. Now Bastila, Carth, you're in charge of keeping the ship intact and away from those Czerka core-rats. We stole this ship fair and square, and I'd rather we didn't lose it to slightly more legal thieves. And make sure Mission doesn't gamble it away playing pazaak."

"Hey!" Mission yelped, clearly insulted.

"Don't you 'hey' me!" Hanuu yelled back. "I noticed you and that Rodian playing yesterday."

"So what? You wanna tell me to stop playing pazaak? Well, you can't; you ain't my mother."

"No, but I am the woman who cleaned you out last week. Or was that some other Rutain teenager I was playing against?"

Mission huffed and rolled her eyes. "You still can't tell me to play pazaak."

'Oh don't give me that,' Hanuu snapped. "I'm not asking you to stop playing pazaak. Play all you want, gamble even. But for Force's sake Mish, don't lose your shirt, because the only other clothes we have that fit you are my old hideous Republic 'freelancer' uniforms, and those look like they were designed by a blind Rodian with a sick sense of humor."

Mission huffed again, but smiled in spite of herself. Carth frowned. "Those uniforms aren't that bad."

"Says the man with the day-glo orange jacket," Hanuu shot back.

"What's wrong with that jacket?" Carth asked. He _liked_ that jacket.

As one, Juhani, Bastila, Hanuu, and Mission exchanged amused looks.

"Do you want the short list or the long one?" Bastila asked.

"Don't give me that, sister," Carth replied. "I mean, you're robes have a leather crouch. What's with that?"

Bastila blushed, and Canderous, who up until now had been staring blanking into space, leaned forward with an expression of profound interest, scrutinizing said area. The girls sniggered as Bastila noticed and used the Force to pull the chair out from under him.

"At least my clothes don't look like they had a previous life as kath hound chew toy," she snapped. Juhani let out a loud guffaw that surprised everyone.

"Yeah? Well take a look at Cat-woman!" Canderous said, gesturing at Juhani. "That color's just as bad as Republic's jacket."

"It's a uniform; a lot of Jedi wear them, they have to. What's your excuse?" Mission asked.

"He's a fifty-five year old guy, he doesn't need an excuse." Bastila scoffed.

Ordo opened with mouth to reply, but Hanuu cut him off. "Okay, now that we've successfully established that we are totally unqualified to save the galaxy from a fasion disaster, why don't we get back to saving it from the Sith one? After all," she added. "I must point out that the Sith have an even worse sense of color-coordination than the Republic."

The tension that had been building up dissolved instantly, and everyone laughed from sheer relief if nothing else.

"Now, we all what to do and what not to do," Hanuu called over the noise. "Let's get to it. We move out in ten."


	4. Kashyyyk Part One

The next week was pure torture for Carth: the inactivity after all that anticipation of activity made each day seem as long as those months on Datooine. His fellow inmates did not help things either; Bastila remained upset with Canderous for ogling her, and within three days Mission had gotten into a string a loud fights with the Mandalorian over a 'friendly' game of pazaak. Two days later she annoyed Bastila to the point of tears. Carth quickly discovered that it was impossible to so much as talk to one without the other two shunning him for hours afterwards. As a result, he spent a lot of time watching news programs and alternating between questioning his decision to stay with Hanuu and worrying about her. Surely they must have reached the Shadowlands by now?

Their ninth day on Kashyyyk dawned cold and gray, complete with a thick mist that complimented his mood nicely. It was his turn on watch, and he was trying to pretend there was some sort threat nearby that required him to remain vigilant when he noticed a bright red blur moving rapidly up the walkway toward the Hawk. Carth stood cautiously, unholstering his blasters as the blur moved closer, slowed, and finally materialized as Juhani, looking the worse for the wear and breathing heavily.

"Ve ran into problems in the village," she gasped. "She need you and Mission to join her there right away."

The next few moments were a blur; the rest of the crew woke up, Bastila helped Mission wrestle herself into Hanuu's old Echani Fiber Armor, Carth fastened on the best armor he had and scurried into the medlab, shoving medpacks into his bag, Canderous caught up to him and shoved several stims into his hand, Juhani passed out in the common area and no one noticed until T3 found her and began beeping shrilly. Canderous hauled her into the medlab, and Bastila shouted at them to "Just get going already!" and then they were off, running as fast as they could past the Czerka guards and onto the Great Walkway.

Even with the stims, it still took eighteen hours to reach the village. Every now and again, they would come across some krinath that Hanuu's group had managed to miss, and neither one of them possessed Juhani's stamina, so they had to take two breaks along the way the recharge. It was eighteen hours too long in Carth's opinion; Juhani had said that she needed them right away- what if they were too late?

Finally, though, the reached the village. Night had fallen by then, and the way was lit by flickering torches. The guard growled menacingly when the approached, but Mission got them past and then they were in, almost running into Hanuu as they dashed into the village.

"This is a nightmare," Hanuu said by way of greeting. Even in the dim light, Carth could see the dark circles beneath her eyes.

"Are you alright? What happened?" Carth asked.

"And where's Big Z?" Mission demanded.

Carth's head was still reeling the answers as they headed down to the Shadowlands. Zaalbar, it seems, had an evil brother named Chuundar, who was not only dealing with slavers, but had Hanuu and Juhani imprisoned for the past few days. They didn't know what happened to Zaalbar during that time, but Hanuu said she didn't sense anything physically wrong with him, although emotionally and mental he was in turmoil, although that was far from surprising; she had also said that Chuundar's condition to release their friend was to kill a madclaw Wookie who she suspected was Freyyr, Zaalbar's father. It almost struck Carth as slightly ridiculous; he'd seen Rodian plays with less melodrama.

"Does anyone here ever get the impression that our lives have turned into one long soap opera?" he asked rhetorically.

"Only every day since we crashed on Taris." Hanuu replied. "So pretty much a year."

"A year? It hasn't been that long, has it?" Carth asked surprised.

"It's been ten months, we're almost there. By the way, do you trust me yet?"

"...sorta."

"Well, I suppose that's the best I can hope for under these circumstances," she sighed. "Don't think I've given up on getting your full trust, though."

"You? Give up? That's a laugh," Carth snorted. There was a few minutes of awkward silence, as Carth racked his brains for suitably lighthearted topic of conversation. "Hey, a year... doesn't that mean birthdays should be coming up?"

"Yeah, and we have some big ones too," Hanuu commented. "Mission'll be turning fifteen, that'd make her an adult on Ryloth. And you must be getting pretty close to forty by now, right?"

"Thanks for the reminder, beautiful, but I not quite that old yet. I still have another year to go."

"That makes you thrity-nine, hm? I thought you were thirty eight when we met?"

"Yeah, my birthday passed about a month ago."

"Really? No wonder you were so maudlin. You should have said something." Hanuu admonished him.

"Are you kidding? That was the day we went kath hound hunting. If I had told you it was my birthday, you would have probably insisted on having a party or something instead."

"So you prefer kath hound hunting to partying? I'll keep that in mind for you fortieth, see if I can't get you one of the albino ones."

Carth snorted. "Oh goodie, I can't wait. If that fails, however, I think I could settle for a good old bottle of Corellian Ale."

"I'll see what I can do," Hanuu promised, before turning to Mission, who was being uncharacteristically quiet. "What about you Mish? Any preference for your fifteenth, or has your birthday passed already?"

"I can't believe you guys are talking about this," Mission said in a low, disgusted tone. "Big Z's being held captive by his Czerka-loving brother, and you're _joking_."

Hanuu and Carth exchanged worried looks.

"Chuundar could kill him, could be killing him right now, and you're making cracks about kath hounds!" she yelled.

"Chuundar won't kill him, Mission," Hanu said wearily, grin sliding from her face like water. "He's too crafty not to see the benefits of keeping him alive and too greedy not to ignore the risks therein."

"I'm sorry, I don't speak that language. Could I have that in Basic?" Mission spat.

Hanuu sighed. "Zaalbar has many of the qualities that would mark him as a leader among Wookies; not only is the son of a chief, but he's honorable, trustworthy, and committed to doing the right thing. Physically, he's a more desirable Wookie than Chuundar too; stronger and taller. With so many of his Wookies already questioning his leadership, all this makes Zaalbar a natural choice to succeed him. If he spoke out against Chuundar, sentients would listen, and they might act."

"But isn't Zaalbar considered to be one of these madclaw things? Why would anyone listen to him?" Carth asked, intrigued despite of himself.

"Because many of they people who would listen to Zaalbar are already questioning Chuundar. Questioning Chuundar entails some suspicion as to his dealings with Czerka. If Zaalbar was telling the truth about Chuundar, then his has amble reason to attack, and is no madclaw, and his credibility is as impeccable as any Wookie's. More so even, because of who he is."

"So, they'd follow him because of a doubt about something Chuundar said years ago?" Mission asked slowly.

"No, but they'd listen, give weight to his words. He'd be more successful than you think. He's actaully pretty eloquent, as far as Wookies go, and some of the Wookies are getting desperate; they've lost family, and they're afraid of losing more. If Zaalbar offered them a way to protect themselves from the slavers, they'd jump at the chance. The result would be a very short and bloody civil war, and Chuundar woud not come out on top."

"But isn't this all a mark against Chuundar keeping him alive? I mean, doesn't this make Zaalbar a pretty serious threat to him?" Carth asked. Hanuu smiled at him, giving him the impression that she had been waiting for him to ask that question.

"Your worst enemy also has the potential to be your best ally." Hanuu intoned mysteriously.

"Basic, Hanuu, Basic," Mission reminded her.

"If he could convince Zaalbar to be on his side- as well as having us try and kill Freyyr- he would have no challengers; he would actually gain a powerful, loyal ally. Those who opposed him would have no champion to spearhead a revolt. They would have no chance of undermining his power, whether they came from the village or Czerka."

"But why would Czerk a want to overthrow Chuundar?" Mission asked her face scrunching her face in concentration. "I mean, they're on the same side."

"For the time being. But the Czerka guards are in the village as much to guard against Chunndar as to guard for him. Sooner or later tensions will reach a critical point; Czerka's greed will cause them to ask for more Wookies than Chuundar's willing to give, or Chuundar's lust for power will push him to ask for more control over Czerka's opperations than they're willing to give, and the alliance will... give. I think Chuundar knows that; if he can get Zaalbar on his side, than he knows his brother will force Czerka to move in the open, were there's more of a chance of him winning."

"That sounds almost...Sith-like," Carth commented.

"It is, but I highly doubt they have anything to do with this. It just simple hatred born from pain and hunger for power, two-thirds of the Holy Trinity of the Sith."

"The what?"

"The Holy Trinity of the Sith? You know, pain, hunger for power, and betrayal?"

"I think I must has missed that lesson in Sith 101," he replied dryly.

"Like you took that class," Hanuu snorted

Carth scrutinized her closely; it didn't sound like she was joking about there being a class, strangely enough.

"Of course, we could just be reading too much into this, and Chuundar's keeping Zaalbar around for purely sentimental reason, like lingering brotherly love or even guilt," Hanuu added, forcing a fake smile upon her face.

"Yet somehow, I think not," Mission answered, looking glum.

"Mission, try not to dwell on it. If you think about this stuff too long, your lekku'll explode," Hanuu ordered bluntly.

"But-"

"Please, Mish, take my advice and tell us when your birthday is," Hanuu cajoled.

"But we still need to find a way to save Big Z!" Mission exclaimed.

"We already have one: find the Wookie Chuundar asked us to kill. Ask him for his help. Overthrow Chuundar, or at least start something that'll cause enough confusion for us to escape in. We will find a way. There is, however, not much we can do that we are not already doing. Now, your birthday?"

Mission sighed, ducking under a branch that was sticking out over the walkway. "It's in about a month, on Year's Turning. Griff always said that was good luck, because if was ever short on credits on my birthday, there'd be plenty of drunken people around to scam..."

* * *

They set up camp on one of the wider sections of walkway less than three hours later, as soon as they were safely away from Wookie eyes. He and Mission were crashing from all the stims they'd used, and Carth had the sneaking suspicion that Hanuu hadn't slept more than a few hours since she left the _Hawk_. This didn't seem to deter her at all, however, and she volunteered to take the first watch. Shortly thereafter, Mission plopped gratefully on top of her sleeping roll, and after a few minutes of wrestling with his guilt, Carth followed suit. He fell asleep staring at the single star he could see through the dense foliage. 

That night he dreamed of Telos.

It was always the same dream, the memories he tried to forget: arriving days too late, with Saul's betrayal still a fresh wound, ordering the bay doors open and his people to assist the refugees in the shuttle craft that were orbiting the planet. The look on his second in command's face as she told him to stand down and find his family. Running through his ship, searching for them among the broken bodies that lines the halls, finding Morgana, badly burned, bits of glass and durasteel embedded in her arms and face, glittering like stars in the night sky against her blackened skin. Screaming for a medic as she vomited up blood, too much blood, the look on her face when she died, blind fear, unaware of anything, how it felt when he realized she was gone, like the universe had shrunk until it crushed upon him, the only things left his pain and Morgana's body, his determination when they discovered a few scattered pockets of life signs near Dustil's school, his despair when his son wasn't among the survivors they found...

And there, his dream departed from reality.

He was standing on a field, the inside of a crater, really, ash floated down from the sky and coated everything, but somehow, he could still see clearly. Dustil stood in the center of his field of vision, sneering at him with a look of pure hatred on his face. The words he spoke differed with each recurrence, but they were always of the same vein: "You abandoned us. It is your fault we're dead, you should have been here, we're family, you should have protected us..."

The end, however, was always the same.

"You said you'd always be here! You'd protect us when we needed it! And when we needed you most you were over Onderon! You left us!" Dustil's body caught fire, flames licking up his sides. "You left us to burn!"

There was nothing darkness and ash.

* * *

Carth awoke slowly, the canopy so dark above him that at first he wasn't sure he was awake. It was only when he noticed the yellow glow of Hanuu's lightsaber, which she had ignited when he woke, that he knew we wasn't dreaming. 

"Carth?" Hanuu asked slowly.

"I'm here, I'm fine, I just hate this place," Carth assured her.

"Yeah, this far down, Kashyyyk is a little oppressive, isn't it?" Hanuu commented. "Do you have a flashlight I could borrow?"

Carth hauled himself up and over to where she knelt in front of a small pile of lightsabers.

"Where did you get all those?" he asked, switching on the light on his blaster and holding it over the heap.

"On the way down to the village, Zaalabr, Juhani, and I ran into a trio of Dark Jedi."

"What!" Carth exclaimed, alarmed. "When were you going to mention this?"

"After you woke up, I guess," Hanuu replied, snapping shut the hilt on one of the lightsabers.

"You guess!"

"Geez, Carth, don't blow a power coupling! It wasn't a big deal; it was actually kind of funny, in a way. The lead Sith said something like 'Lord Malak was most displeased when he learned you had escaped Taris alive'. Apparently, we were supposed to wait until _after_ we were dead and _then_ have our copses shipped to Datooine."

"Hanuu, there's nothing funny about this If Malak has sent Dark Jedi here, that means he knows where we are! He-"

"Carth, give me a little more credit than that. We found their camp and did some snooping; about six months ago they got a communique- their first communique in over a year, I might add, and they haven't had one since- with descriptions of you, me, and Bastila. It was a block message, every Sith agent in the galaxy probably got it."

"But-"

"They check in three times a year, and we have almost three months before they were due for another one. I doubt we'll be here that long. Malak doesn't know where we are, and not only that, he doesn't seem to know who we're traveling with. Calm down."

Carth snorted bitterly and ran his fingers through his hair. "You know," he sighed. "This is why I only sort of trust you."

"Excuse me? You only sort of trust me because I'm capable enough to-"

"You being capable has nothing to do with it If you weren't so capable I wouldn't trust you at all!" In her sleep, Mission snuffled and rolled over. Lowering his voice to a hiss so as not to wake her, Carth continued. "It's the fact that you're so fracking mysterious all the time. Talking to you is like trying to catch smoke! I mean, do you even have a big bad dirty secret somewhere in your past or do you just not trust me?"

Hanuu gaped at him, and Carth knew he had docked his shuttle in the right port.

"Wow...really?" he asked. Hanuu nodded stiffly. "Why?"

"It's nothing personal, Carth," she said, then stopped smiling ruefully. "I just don't trust anyone."

"Hmm... where have I heard that one before?" Carth teased.

"Do you think we should try to talk about this, or shall we just simply skip to the part where I call you 'handsome' and you threaten to cut my ears off?" Hanuu joked back.

"I thought we agreed it was 'most handsome pilot in the galaxy'?" Carth replied, relieved she got it. If all they did was bicker and flirt, they would never have to look at the sarlacc on the floor.

"I said I'd think about it," Hanuu retorted. "Consider yourself lucky you're not stuck with Gammorian pig-man."

"Ouch! My man-feelings!" Carth cried, theatrically clutching his side.

Hanuu snorted, and then, sobering, tentatively said. "We probably should talk, though."

Carth winced, and stayed silent. Maybe if he did talk, she'd just let it drop.

"I mean, logically speaking, there's no reason for us not to trust each other," Hanuu continued when it became apparent he wasn't going to say anything. "I'm not exactly a smuggler anymore, and you're all noble and loyal-"

"I thought I was stubborn and paranoid?" Carth asked, hoping to side-track her.

"Those are your more dubious virtues. I'm naming your good points."

"Oh then, by all means, please continue." Carth said, happy that his ploy seemed to be working.

Hanuu raised an eyebrow at him, and he realized how conceited that had sounded.

"I, uh, didn't mean it quite that way..."

"Oh good. Otherwise we might have been here for a while."

"Really? You find me that irresistable?"

"Well, I suppose it would depend largely on the amount of detail I went into. I could just tell you I find you extremely attractive. Or I could start saying things like 'your eyebrows are sexy'."

"You're making that up," Carth charged, waggling said eyebrows suggestively.

"No, Carth, I'm afraid I'm not," Hanuu deadpanned. Carth got the impression that her eyes were twinkling, although in the gloom it was hard to tell. "Your eyebrows just make me want to swoon."

They stared deeply into each other's eyes for a moment before collapsing into helpless, convulsive giggles.

"That was the worse swoon I've ever seen in my entire life," Carth added when they had begun to calm down a bit. Hanuu let out a howl, and set them off again.

Next time there was a lull, however, Carth had no comment to make, and Hanuu turn to him with seriousness oozing out of her pores and said "Really, though, we should talk about this. Like mature adults rather than hormone-crazed teenagers."

"Why? We trust each other enough in a firefight, or life-or-death situation. And for the record, I enjoy bickering with you. Can't we just let it be?" he begged.

"No, we can't. Not that I don't like our banter more than probably speaks well of my mental health, but we are involved in something much bigger than us. We're both used to being in charge, which is probably part of the problem, but just because I'm currently leading our band of merry wanderers doesn't mean that'll always be the case. And should something come up, I want to be able to transfer command to you without reservations."

"Something like..?"

"I could be captured. Incapacitated. And should we meet up with Saul..." she sighed, shifting uncomfortably. "Well, I get the impression that nothing under the sun- let alone anything I would say- would stop you from going after him with everything you have."

Carth winced again. It was fair assessment- brutally so. "So we should work this out...for the good of the Reoublic?"

"The fate of the galaxy may rest upon it," Hanuu intoned, the corners of her mouth twitching. "Seriously, though, we should be able to talk this out. They say trust is the absence of words...and I guess we still need them."

Carth nodded. They sat in uncomfortable silence for awhile.

"So...this is a nice talk we're having," he commented.

"Yes, extremely fulfilling."

There was another silence, before Carth blurted "You can start."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Several of my rather closely-guarded secrets have already been spilled, now it's your turn."

"No way," Hanuu balked. "I told you about my family, that has to count for something. And besides, this is supposed to be a mutual trust-building thing. We both talk."

"Well, thanks to you, beautiful, I have a fairly decent head-start. You get to talk now."

"Fine!" Hanuu cried, throwing her hands up in the air in surrender. "I'll talk longer- but you're talking too."

"Fine!" Carth echoed. "Where do we start?"

"Well," Hanuu said slowly. "There is the obvious starting point.' She tilted her head back until she was staring straight up into the canopy. "Telos."

Carth froze as all the horror and anguish of his nightmare returned with that single word. "Why Telos," he snapped, angry that she would even bring it up. "You aren't going to tell me you're from there too?"

"No, I'm from Deralia, and don't change the subject."

"I'm not changing the subject. If you're going to drag my home planet into this, we're talking about yours too."

"Fine!" Hanuu yelled again. "Deralia's a small, little know world, the only inhabitable planet in a system of five on the Outter Rim. It was colonized about five hundred years ago, and the colonists took a lot of care to keep it as pristine as when they found it. It's mostly vineyard, farming villas, and hunting preserves surface-side; we built all the industrial facilities on the two moons for all our manufactured needs; droids, swoops, durasteel plating, the odd starship. About half a century ago, Czerk a showed up, and over the course of the next decade, they began a 'hostile takeover' of the planet. By the time I was born, most Deralians lived in a state of near-slavery. Czerka owned about fifty percent of the land, and they rented most of it too wealthy offworlders. Deralians mostly worked either as servants or Tibana miners- we had three gas giants just full of the stuff, which was why Czerka was interested in our little system in the first place. My family served as the household staff for an Echani family that lived in our old villa. Strangley enough, child labor laws had become absent from the rule book on Deralia, so I worked with my mother from age three on. I left Deralia when I was eleven, but you already know that. I haven't been back since, and to be completely honest I'd rather not ever go back."

Hanuu looked hopefully at Carth, who raised an eyebrow and made a 'continue' motion with his hands. She sighed, and hen began again.

"Well...the Mandalorian Wars, then. Deralia's fairly close to the Mandalorian Sector, it was one of the first planets they tried to invade. I had already left by that point, but I heard about what happened. Apparently, rather than helping Czerka fight the Mandalorians, several Deralians banded together and sent an emmissary to them with a deal; they sabatoge the Czerka war effort, and give them access to the Tibana, and in reutrn the Mandalorians would teach them to fight."

"Your people allied themselves with the Mandalorians?" Carth blurted.

"Yes, the Deralians did,' Hanuu answered. "Although I suppose I can't possibly justify that to you completely, you do have to understand that the situation for any native born Deralian was growing increasing desperate. Every able-bodies person was required to work for ten years in the Tibana mines once they turned sixteen; the average life expectancy for those miners was about four years. During that time, they often found they weren't paid enough to cover the cost of living, so those who survived often left with huge amounts of debt they and their descendants would have to pay off for the rest of eternity. There was even a law about to be enacted that required every native to be implanted with a tracking device- for a fee, of course- to stop them from avoiding the work. Their virtual enslavement was very quickly approaching an all-too-real one."

"Sounds similar to what's happening here," Carth commented.

Hanuu nodded, looking relieved. Obviously, she had expected him to get angry. "I will say this about that alliance, though; after the war was over, when Czerka returned to try an reclaim their 'investment' with a small fleet, the Deralians fought them back. And won."

"And you?"

"As I said, I had already left Deralia at that point. I think I was on Ryloth at then, just beginning my career as a smuggler."

"On Ryloth? What is there to smuggle on Ryloth?"

"People desperate to remain as such."

"Huh?"

"That's as much detail as I'm willing to go into sober on that particular subject. I hate Ryloth with a rather unJedi-like passion."

"Okay, okay... and where does Telos fit into all of this?"

"It doesn't really. I thought it was a good place to start, but then you wanted to talk about my home planet-"

"Not that that's done a lot of good."

"Sorry, but you _did_ ask about it. If you really wanted to find out about me, you should have asked about Corescant."

"I'll keep that in mind. Now, why'd you want to talk about Telos?"

"Because I know why you hate this place. I was there, Carth, on Telos, just after the Sith bombed it."

"What?" Carth asked, feeling all the blood drain from his face.

"I think mine might have been the first ship there."

Carth said nothing, too stunned to find the words.

"I went to the surface first, we had picked some life signs on the southern continent, a bunch of kids. There was ash everywhere, you couldn't see anything in the sky, but-"

"You could see everything on the ground too clearly," Carth finished hoarsely.

Hanuu nodded.

"I remember; my ship arrived a few days after yours. We all thought the attack was going to happen on Onderon," his voice trailed off miserably

"I know. I heard some of the officers talking on the comm...you were serving on the _Harebringer_, weren't you? As captain?"

"Dare I ask what you heard?" Carth asked ruefully. It hadn't been his best performance as CO.

"Commander Suul and Captain Cede were having a long, loud conversation about whether or not you should be at your post to help him coordinate the refugee pick up. It culminated with Suul insulting his parentage and accusing him of gross incompetence, and then more or less taking charge of all the Republic ships in orbit."

"Yeah, that sounds like something Liana would do. I always wondered how she managed to get through her career with only five marks for insubordination on her record. She acted like she was an admiral from day one as a lieutenant," Carth commented. "She probably saved me from being thrown out of the fleet that day, though. I didn't really act much like a soldier."

"You're planet was just destroyed. I think you can be forgiven," Hanuu replied. "Especially when you take into account the way in which it was destroyed."

"By Saul, you mean," Carth clarified, his anger returning. Why did they have to keep talking about this?

"Yes by Saul," Hanuu confirmed. "Tell me, why do you want revenge on him so badly?"

For a long moment, Carth didn't answer- and didn't plan on answering. Surely no amount of trust was worth reliving the destruction of his life? But something told him that he couldn't live for long without coming to terms with this mess, and it was also telling him that Hanuu had lived through just as much betrayal and loss as he had- maybe more. 'She would understand,' he thought, staring at the long-forgotten pile of lightsabers at their feet.

And so, for the first time, Carth let the details of that fateful, thrice-cursed day wash out of him.


	5. Kashyyyk Part Two

There really wasn't much he could say after that, although Carth figured now was probably the time to ask Hanuu about _her_ family- the mostly non-human one he remembered her mentioning on Taris- but he couldn't drag up the energy required to do so. Just thinking about his family normally left him feeling emotionally drained and hallow; talking about them left him feeling exhausted. 'I wonder if I still have time to sleep before my watch?' he wondered idly before checking his chronometer.

He did a double-take as the time registered- it was almost eight hours after they had set up camp.

"Hey," he said showing her the display. "When were you going to wake me up? I thought we were taking shifts?"

"Well, you thought wrong," Hanuu replied. "We'll take shifts after you and Mission have recovered from all those stims you took. I really can't believe you injected that many..."

"And what about you?" Carth asked, dismissing her concern over the stims. "Have you slept at all?"

"No," Hanuu answered, shooting him a disgusted look. "What sort of a guard do you think I am?"

"Right now, a tired one," Carth replied.

Hanuu snorted. "I've stayed up for a week straight without so much as a caffa, Carth. A few missed nights aren't going to hurt me."

"Be that as it may, you better get some rest next time we stop," he admonished, putting a threatening noted in his voice. How the hell did she expect to function without sleep?

Hanuu snorted again. "Carth, I think I'm old enough by now to know my own limits- including when my bedtime is."

"Yeah well, could you do it for my peace of mind? You look like death right now, and if you're going to go through the entire week with no sleep I'll end up shooting you by mistake thinking you're a zombie."

"Ha," Hanuu deadpanned.

"Please?" Carth asked.

Hanuu sighed "Alright, alright, I promise I'll get some sleep, and, if for some reason I don't, you have my full permission to tie me to the bedroll."

"Only in your dreams, beautiful."

"And you wonder why I don't want to sleep?"

Carth shot her a disgusted look. Hanuu licked a finger and drew a line in the air: Carth, zero; Hanuu, one.

"We should probably head out now," he said, ignoring her.

Hanuu looked at her chronometer and jumped to her feet. "Yeah, moving would be a good idea," she agreed, pushing the lightsabers into her pack. "I'll wake up Mission, could you dig up some field rations for breakfast?"

It took them only a few minutes to get going; they decided, without saying anything, that they would eat as they walked down the ramp. Mission seemed more inclined to fall off the walkway then move, although she perked up considerably when Hanuu procured some coco-covered caffa beans from out of nowhere. They set off silently, Mission because she was too busy eating, Hanuu and Carth because their rhythm had been broken, and they weren't sure where to go from there.

"You know, it's funny, really," Mission said conversationally, licking some melted chocolate off her finger. "I always thought Taris was the pits when it came to how non-humans were treated."

"Well, it kind of is," Hanuu replied

"Yeah, but what about this place? I mean it's the Wookies' own planet, and they're getting treated like crap," Mission asked gloomily.

"Only because they people who are doing the treating feel it's their planet. According to them, Wookies are sub-sentient, so they can't actually own anything," Hanuu answered. Carth was pretty sure he knew where this was going: Mission was obviously worried that she would be treated the same way.

"Yeah, and considering aliens sub-sentient is so unlike the Tarisians," Mission snorted

"It's not just humans here, though. There's the Ithorian in the Czerka office upstairs," Carth told her. Mission bit her lip

"Mission, sentients are screwed up," Hanuu said bluntly. "Everywhere. People with power enjoy stepping on those without, with the possible exception of a few leaders and most of the Jedi. It isn't always about _your_ race, either; you go to some places on Corescant and you're almost guaranteed to get harassed for not having lekku."

Mission's lips twitched slightly, and some of the tension drained from her posture. "Well, it's nice to know there's enough of a sense of cosmic justice that humans get picked on by Twi'leks somewhere. Although I suppose it's too much to ask that I won't get asked to be a dancer at every cantina we stop in?"

"No, although if it makes you feel better I've gotten some of those offers myself," Hanuu informed her. Carth could have cheered; now _there_ was an opening he could use to get back into the groove.

"Well, that might be because you _were _a dancer," he pointed out slyly. Mission choked on her nerf mush.

"Well, I don't hear you complaining about the credits I earned," Hanuu shot back, grin sliding easily onto her face. "About you not being able to see, on the other hand..."

"Wait, when was there dancing?" Mission asked looking thrown.

"Way back when we were still stuck in the Upper City without a clue as to what we could do."

"So you decided to...dance. In a cantina," Mission stated incredulously.

"I thought it more discrete to dance in a cantina than the crashed escape pod," Hanuu responded.

"You could have just used our room," Carth grumbled, only half joking. Mission turned a strange purple color.

"Oh you're just sore that while I was shaking my thing and dodging Hutt slobber you were stuck trying not to flirt with that Sith lady," Hanuu retorted.

"Damn right I am! If it's a choice between a fully clothed Sarna and partially-clothed Hanuu, you win a decisive victory every time."

"But only if I'm partially clothed?"

"No, of course not. You'd win if you weren't wearing anything," Carth said with a roguish wink.

"Oh Carth, that's so sweet," Hanuu mocked. "You do say the loveliest-"

Mission suddenly began to howl, causing Carth to jump. He and Hanuu exchanged alarmed looks as Mission began to shake, still howling.

"Mish-" Hanuu began concernedly, but stopped as it became apparent that the Twi'lek was giggling, rather than have some sort of seizure.

"And what, exactly, is so funny?" Hanuu cried, bewildered. Carth sympathized. "Really, this is nothing compared to how we normally act."

"And how we'll be acting now that we're keeping score," Carth muttered.

"Oh we were always keeping score," Hanuu informed him. "You're didn't notice because you're just that clueless."

"Me? Clueless? I thought I was 'all noble and loyal'!"

"Yeah, but your stubbornness, paranoia and cluelessness cancel it out."

"So I guess my only saving grace is my sexy eyebrows," Carth sighed.

Mission let out another howl.

"See what you've done? Now she's ululating!" Hanuu cried.

"She's what?"

"Ha! That's point for me, right there!" Hanuu raised her arms in triumph.

Carth scowl deepened as Mission's giggling intensified. Hanuu put a worried arm around her, but the Twi'lek simply batted it away "You don't get points for vocabulary."

"Yes, I do."

"No, you don't."

"I do when it's a word like 'ululate'."

Her argument was so illogical, that for a moment Carth had no reply. "Is that so? Well then I have a word for you, beautiful and it's-"

"The fate of the galaxy!" Mission screamed suddenly.

He and Hanuu disengaged for a moment to look at her. Rather that explain herself, however, Mission simply giggled. He and Hanuu exchanged half-worried, half-confused looks, and Hanuu made another move towards Mission, who sped up before stopping a few feet away from them, her laughter subsiding into hiccups.

"Was she like this at all on the ship?" Hanuu asked quietly.

Carth shrugged. "We all kind of avoided each other, to be completely honest."

Hanuu frowned, then turned back to Mission, "Dare I ask what sort of epiphany you had about the fate of the galaxy that caused you dissolve into hysterics?" she asked pointedly.

"It rests with us!" Mission cried. "I mean, look at us! We aren't even fit to herd nerf! We can't function as a group and every time we try we end up insulting each other! I mean, who are we, even; a bantha-breathed walking carpet, a Jedi princess so inflexible it's wonder she can bend enough to have her head shoved so far up her ass, I'm too young to even be allowed in most cantinas, who the hell knows what Canderous' story is-"

"He just likes to watch things go boom," Carth put in sotto voice. Mission shot him an exasperated look, and Hanuu elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ouch! What was that for?" Carth asked, rubbing his side.

"Let the girl rant, Carth," Hanuu ordered, looking at Mission with a very peculiar expression on her dark face.

"Thank you Hanu, because I haven't even gotten to the best part yet: you two!" Mission cried. Carth started. " You're supposed to be leading our group and helping us to function, and instead you're always bickering and flirting and then going off to do Force knows what in the cockpit-"

Carth choked on his own spit.

"Mission!" Hanuu cried, slapping him on the back. "We don't...aren't..._couldn't_..."

"No sex," Carth gasped. "None. Promise."

"I'd have to stab myself with my own lightsaber," Hanuu said seriously.

"After she stabbed me," Carth added, shaking his head, as much to clear of the disturbingly enticing images Mission's assumption had aroused as for emphasis. Although, he kinda doubted he would ever fully get rid of them.

Mission blushed purple. "Sorry, but, you two do sorta give off a vibe."

"A...vibe?" Carth asked.

"I think she means the bantering and flirting," Hanuu replied, still looking at Mission.

"Yes, that!" Mission cried. "It's practically all you do! And sometimes I feel like you don't take anything seriously, like I'm more mature than you are!"

"I think every teenager feels like that," Carth muttered. Hanuu elbowed him again. "Ow!"

Hanuu continued to regard Mission with that same inscrutable expression on her face. "Mission, why were you laughing earlier?"

"Huh?" Mission asked, confused at the apparent change in topic.

"Answer the question please," Hanuu ordered calmly.

"Well... I was sorta overwhelmed, you know? I mean, it's a big jump to go from living on the streets of Taris to living in the enclave on Datooine to saving the galaxy. I'm not qualified for this, I mean, I wasn't even qualified for Datooine-" she stopped abruptly, her headtails twitching in agitation. "I don't know," she admitted finally. "I guess I laughed ...so I wouldn't cry."

"Good," Hanuu said. "Because that's kind of what the bantering is. A little- or, okay, a lot-" she added quickly at the look on Mission's face. "Of silliness to keep our spirits afloat and distract us from the fact that the waters here are way too deep. While Carth may seem like a much better swimmer than you, and I was the reigning backstroke champion as a teenager, we're in no more danger of drowning than you."

Carth stared at her. "That was... the most morose thing I've ever heard in my life," he said finally.

"And I suppose now you want a point for using the word 'morose'," Hanuu sighed, a large grin blooming on her face as she began to walk down the path again. Carth and Mission followed.

"Can I?"

"No."

"How about a point for 'kakistocracy'?" Mission asked

"You can get a point for that, I don't even know what that means," Hanuu said.

"Rule by the least qualified people," Mission defined. Carth groaned

"Okay, for that, you get _two_ points," Hanuu said. "But try to bear in mind that no one's put Bastila in charge yet."

"Then who's running the ship?"

"What do you think T3 is doing?"

Conversation continued along that line until they ran into some Wookie hunters attacking still more krinath.

"That was nice of you," Carth complimented her later. For a moment Hanuu seemed not to hear, and his only answer was the sounds of Mission's snores and the creaking of the basket's ropes as it lowered itself into the Shadowlands.

"I thought we agreed I didn't do nice," she said at last.

"Yeah, well, I still contend that you are, in fact, a nice person, and that what you said to Mission was proof of that," he countered.

"You thought that was nice? You have a weird way of looking at things," Hanuu said with a shake of the head.

"Yeah, well, you calmed her down. Made her feel not so overwhelmed," Carth clarified. "I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us in the butt."

"Okay, now I really have no idea what's going on in that paranoid little brain of yours," Hanuu scoffed. "First you're telling me I was nice, then you're saying I said something that might come back to bite us? What universe are you living in?"

"The real one," he answered.

"Then could you at least make sense?" Hanuu requested.

Carth rolled his eyes. "I do make sense. I'm not the one who uses words like 'ululate'."

"It's not my fault you have to vocabulary of a Datooine hillbilly," she snapped.

"Don't start with that, sister. Sheesh, I was just trying to start a civil conversation..."

"No, you were about to try to subtly have a conversation about whether or not Mission is qualified to go into the Shadowlands," Hanuu said. Carth gaped.

"I thought you said you couldn't read minds!" he exclaimed.

"I can't, and even if I could I wouldn't. It would be an incredible invasion of privacy, and I have enough trouble having Bastila in my head as it is,"

"Bastila's in your head? No wonder you're so irritable," Carth said. Hanuu snorted.

"Yeah. It seems like she can't probe my mind when I'm this far away from her, although with concentration we're supposed to be able to communicate even when we're on different planets," Hanuu said. "It _sucks_. She can lecture me anytime she wants and I can't shut her out!"

"What the hell did you do to deserve that?" Carth asked.

"I don't know," Hanuu said seriously. "But it must have been really bad. Maybe I was a Sith Lord in my past life?"

"I don't think even Revan deserved that sort of punishment," Carth muttered. Hanuu snorted.

"No, no, that's exactly the sort of fitting end for evil personified," she sniggered. "Listening to all the ways you can possibly fall to the dark side in the prissy Alderaanian accent of hers."

Carth laughed.

"But getting back to business; no, I don't plan on sending Mission back to the ship anytime soon." Hanuu said. Carth's laughter stopped abruptly.

"Look, I know she's a really capable kid, but she's still just a kid-"

"They're all kids," Hanuu bit out. "Bastila's twenty-one, and Juhani's eighteen. Force only knows how old Zaalbar is."

Carth gaped. "Juhani's eighteen?" he asked.

"Yeah, I know. None of us should be out here, really; I meant it when I said we were all unqualified for this, but then again, no one is qualified for this. I suppose the Masters thought no one would think us to be any sort of threat; but I can't help but hope that we have at least one of them with us in whatever final battle there'll be."

They sat in silence for a while. "Yeah, but Mission is younger than any of us-"

"She's also tough- tougher than me, I sometimes think," Hanuu admitted. Carth shot her an incredulous look.

"Hanuu you couldn't be any tougher if you were a Mandalorian," he commented. "How the hell do you figure Mission's tougher than you?"

"I'm tough because I have to be, because that the only way I know how to be," Hanuu informed him. "Mission has had people look after her, and while I guess her brother and Zaalbar aren't exactly like her parents, it least they meant she didn't have to be on high alert all the time."

"I take it you did?" Carth asked.

"In a word: yes," Hanuu replied firmly, and Carth had the impression that she wanted the topic closed. After a small debate- she always dragged stuff out of him, why shouldn't he return the favor?- he let it be, storing it away in a mental folder he was calling 'things to bother Hanuu about later'. It was getting to be quite fat and heavy, but somehow, he couldn't bring himself to look at it; despite what he accused her of during their latest argument, he knew, without knowing how he knew, that there was something big and ugly in her past, perhaps several somethings, and he wasn't quite ready to face them yet. Why he wasn't ready to facing them was also something he didn't know either, all he suspected _that_ was simply self-delusion rather than freaky intuition about someone he was supposedly sharing a cockpit with. It had something to do with family, but every time he tried to follow that trail of thought, his own family became tangled in it.

"_...picked up lifesigns on the southern continent..._"

Kind of like now.

"Hey Hanuu?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you come across any Dustils while you were on Telos?"

"No, I would have told you sooner if I did. There were three Castils and a Duston, but no Dustil."

"Heh...that's almost funny, in a way."

"How so?"

"Dustil's not a traditional name- it's a combination of my father's name-Castil- and Morgana's father's name-Duston."

"Morgana's your wife's name?"

"Yep."

Silence fell back into the basket, and this time Carth felt no need to break it.

Calo Nord was waiting for them in the Shadowlands.

"So _that's_ how Malak knew what we looked like," Carth whispered in Hanuu's ear as he unholstered his blaster. She nodded grimly, activating her lightsaber.

"And that we made it off Taris," she agreed. Besides them, Mission activated her energy shield.

There was a short exchange of words during which it was made painfully clear that their meeting wasn't going to end in a round of Tarisian Ales, and then Nord attacked.

The fight went surprising well, for one that consisted of a bounty hunter and two Wookies vs. a Twi'lek teenager, Republic soldier, and newly initiated Jedi. Mission lobbed an adhesive grenade at the trio, which quickly became stuck in knee-high goop, Hanuu used some sort of Force power to push Nord into the mess. Swearing, the bounty hunter pulled himself up just as Hanuu attacked with her saber; Mission and Carth had already begun their attacks on his companions. Carth's Wookie fell with a grunt, and he turned to help Mission with hers, but just as he was aiming, the Wookie staggered back, looking stunned. Mission thrust forward once, and the Wookie silently fell to the floor.

'Huh' he thought, aiming his blasters instead at Nord, who was fighting with the all-too-familiar style of a dying man. 'Maybe Hanuu was right about her being tougher than she looks after all'.

Nord hit the ground with a squish, the remnants of the adhesive grenade cushioning his fall.

"Well that was unpleasant," Hanuu commented, deactivating her lightsaber

"No duh," Mission snorted, jerking her vibroblade free of Nord's corpse, a disgusted look on her face.

Behind them , the Wookie who had lowered them down into the Shadowlands growled.

"Oh don't give me that you great big lump of shag," Hanuu scolded. "We could have been killed just now and then who would have done your precious Chuundar's dirty work for him, eh?"

As she berated the Wookie, Carth moved over to where Mission sat, examining the corpses.

"What was that thing you did with your blades?" Carth asked.

"You mean the fighting thing? I've been doing that since I was eight," she informed him.

"No I mean, during the fight you managed to hit your opponent in such a way that you stunned him," Carth elaborated, slightly irritated. Did she really think he hadn't noticed she could fight with blades? "How did you do that?"

"Oh, you mean a critical strike? It's pretty simple really- you just gotta aim for the area underneath the rib cage with the flat of your blade. If you hit it hard enough, they's normally too winded to defend themselves for a minutes or so," Mission explained. "You can do it with blasters too if you have a good enough aim, but any sort of energy shield would render it useless. You know, blasters are kind of useless in a lot of situations; maybe you should learn to fight with blades."

"I know how to fight with blades," Carth defended himself. "I just don't need to because I'm an expert with blasters."

"Sure you do!" Mission argued. "What if that Wookie had rushed you? He could have ripped your arms out before you got a single shot out!"

"No... I would have seen him coming and gotten out of the way and shot him as he went past," Carth explained. "Something which you could do if you used a ranged weapon."

"Hey, I'm pretty handy with a blaster, thank you very much," Mission shot back. "More handy than you are with a vibroblade, I bet."

"Alright you two, lets have the ranged vs. melee weapons debate later. My saber kicks both your butts anyway," Hanuu intervened. Carth and Mission rounded on her.

"Oh, so you think so, do you?" Mission demanded.

"Yep," Hanuu replied, bending down to search Nord's body for anything useful.

"I'll admit that lightsabers make a pretty powerful melee weapon, but it's impossible to attack and enemy from afar," Carth argued.

"Oh, so you think so, do you?" Hanuu asked mischievously.

"Just calling them like I see them," Carth shot back.

"Your senses betray you," Hanuu grinned. "See that tree over there?"

"Which one?" Mission called dryly. Carth laughed

"She gets a point for that one," he said.

"Oh you just don't want me to win." Hanuu huffed, activating her lightsaber. "But I will anyway. I always do." And with that she flung her lightsaber into the forest, where it cut an arc through the branches before returning to its owner.

"I stand corrected," Carth muttered, staring at the saber.

"That thing is just_ too cool_," Mission moaned.

"Well, we had to get something to compensate for all that chastity and obedience."

"You? Chaste and obedient?" Mission repeated incredulously.

"Too may comebacks, not nearly enough time," Carth muttered.

Behind them, the Wookie roared.

"Alright, alright already!" Hanuu yelled, wrestling Nord's armor into her pack. "Come on, let's get out of tall, dark, and irksome's sight."

Their way through the forest floor was notable for only one reason; they were silent as they walked. Maybe it was the gloom, maybe it was the fact that everything here dwarfed them, but more likely than not it was simply because they were so damn tired. Within two hours, Mission was stumbling over herself, and three hours after that Carth began to do the same. Hanuu, of course, kept the same steadfast pace she always did, slowing only when she noticed they were falling behind and speeding back up again when they had caught back up. It was, he thought ruefully, yet another example of how he'd misjudged her. When she'd said she could go a week without sleep or chemicals of any kind, he's thought she was grossly exaggerating; now he thought it might have been an understatement. It almost made him wonder what sort of stamina she would have in other, more engaging, activities...

Carth shook his head violently, trying to dislodge yet another one of those persistent mental images. He felt a wave of irritation anger towards Mission; if she had just kept her damn mouth shut, he could have lived without ever thinking about such things.

Ahead of him, Hanuu stopped abruptly, cocking her head to one side. "Do you hear that?" she whispered.

Carth came up behind her, listening. There was some sort of movement around the corner but he couldn't make out what it was like this. He closed his eyes on concentrated...

Four tu'taka, angry, attacking. The unmistakable hum of a lightsaber. Animal deathscreams as it impacted...

"Not another dark Jedi," Carth groaned, opening his eyes. Hanuu shook her head.

"He wields the Force, but I can't tell which way he swings," she mused.

"Trying to set Canderous up?" Carth joked, unholstering his blasters again.

"Huh?" Hanuu asked, shooting him a bewildered look.

"You said you couldn't tell which way he swung, so..." his voice trailed off at the bemused look on her face. "Never mind, wasn't all the funny anyway."

"You got that right," she replied, moving past him. Carth followed cautiously; Mission falling into step just behind him.

"You're tying to hard," she whispered into his ear.

"I'm not trying to do anything at all," Carth snapped back.

"Sure," Mission snorted. Carth wheeled around.

"Would you just cut that out!" he ordered. Mission held up her hands in what was probably supposed to be a nonthreatening manner, but the two bloody vibroblades she held ruined the effect. "If you say so," she answered.

"Yeah, well, I do," Carth snarled as they rounded to corner. Hanuu stooding a clearing full of dead tu'taka and an old man, who blade, Carth was relieved to see, was a nice safe Jedi green. Just as they caught up with them, however, he ran off into the gloom.

"What was that all about?" Carth asked as they drew near.

"Damned if I know," Hanuu replied. "But I think we may have just met the crazy guy that Wookie on the walkway warned us about."

"No," Mission scoffed, peering into the darkness where the old man had disappeared. "Ya think?"


	6. Kashyyyk Part Three

It didn't take long to find the old man; the trail of dead krinath was a pretty good clue, as was the fact that there was only one obvious path, but even if they didn't have those they probably would have seen the merry glow of artificial lighting eventually.

The owner of that lighting, however, was not so merry.

"...what's the plight of a few Wookies to the Jedi Council," Jolee grumbled .

Hanuu bristled. "I assure you, simply because the Council deem something unimportant does not mean I do so as well," she said icily.

Jolee, strangely enough, looked impressed. "Smart girl," he complimented her.

"I do, however," she continued, a slight nod the only indication that she had heard him. "Still have an obligation to complete the task they have set before me. So, do you, or do you not, know the whereabout of a Star Map?"

"Yes, I do," he admitted grudgingly. "But if I'm going to help you, you have to do something for me..."

Jolee went on to explain about poachers and what he wanted done with them, but Carth was hardly listening. His tired brain had finally kicked itself back into paranoid gear, and supplied him with several very good reasons why they shouldn't trust the old man. They didn't know him from Revan, for one thing, and for another what was he even doing down here for twenty years, and how did it make even the Wookies think he was more than a little mad? They probably shouldn't even be listening to him, he was probably senile...

Besides him, Mission groaned, bringing him back to reality.

"On second thought, we've been at it all day. Would you mind putting us up for the night?" Hanuu asked. Carth ground his teeth; couldn't she see they shouldn't trust him, let alone sleep under the same roof? Why was he always the only one to notice these things?

Jolee snorted. "I suppose I can't just leave you out for the krinath, can I? Don't expect any food though. I don't have a food synthesizer and my larders are limited."

"That won't be a problem," Hanuu informed him regally. "We have plenty of field rations with us, and some choco-covered caffa beans to get rid of the taste."

"You have caffa!" Jolee exclaimed. "Well then, come in, come in! And bring those beans with you."

Jolee's home was a strange one. To begin with, it had eleven rooms, seven of which seemed to have no purpose at all. They were simply there, plain wooden walls and simple woven mats the only feature he noticed when he checked them out. It gave Carth the impression that whenever Jolee got bored, he'd make himself another room.

The four rooms that were in use, by contrast, had a character all their own, probably because no one else actually wanted a home that was a cluttered, unholy mess. Shelves and cabinets sprung from the walls, floor, and ceiling at odd angles; Mission tripped over a cabinet that had appeared out of nowhere and Carth clipped his head on the corner of a shelf that swung down from the ceiling. Soup bubbled groggily over an old-fashioned heating pad in the corner, and, much to his and Hanuu's surprise, Jolee began to ladle this into four earthenware bowls.

"This is in exchange for some of those caffa beans, mind," Jolee warned as he kicked the wall viciously, cause a panel to fall out of the wall and become a table. He set the soup down, and motioned for them to pick up a nearby bench and have a seat.

"You're welcome to them," Hanuu said, graciously accepting a spoon. "I'm afraid we only have the choco-covered kind, however, and they aren't very good for grinding."

Mission slurped her soup mechanically.

Jolee snorted. "You think I mind? I've gone almost twenty years without caffa, a little choco isn't going to ruin the experience."

"Two decades? I'm surprised you're still alive." Hanuu commented.

"Bah. The abundance of tachs for ale made up for a lot."

Conversation continued along that vein for a time, Carth and Mission purposefully contributing nothing; Mission because she was exhausted, Carth because he was trying to figure out when Hanuu became so polite. He racked his brains, and wondered, briefly, if her bond with Bastila was somehow allowing Hanuu to channel her, but dismissed it after he remember what she had said about the bond diminishing over distances. It was only after the conversation had somehow segued into a comparison of cantina brawls, and she still acted politely aloof that he realized that this must be her way of dealing with people she didn't trust, with people she wasn't sure about. It made a lot of sense, actually; she could keep people at an appraising distance until she made up her mind, but not so that it would offend anyone. He probably should have picked up on it earlier; it was how she acted with Bastila right after rescuing her, and how she was with Mission in the cantina... although she had been her normal informal self with him from the moment they met. Huh. Maybe it was just the fact that she was getting over a head injury. Or maybe it was because he had just saved her life- it hadn't taken him long to realize that she was used to being the one who did all the saving.

Mission choose that moment to fall asleep at the table, face-planting herself in her soup.

"And I think that's our cue to go to bed," Hanuu said cheerfully. "Shall I assume we're taking one of your many spare rooms?"

Jolee grumbled unintelligibly, threw his soup bowl into a cabinet and shuffled off.

"Is that a 'yes', or a 'no'?" Carth asked.

"I think that's a 'you should be smart enough to figure this stuff out on your own. Kids these days...'." Hanuu mocked. Carth sniggered.

"I heard that! Now go to bed. Damn the impertinence of the young..."

Still sniggering slightly, Carth helped Hanuu move Mission into a room- one that was close to a door, he noticed- and move all their equipment inside.

"Who's taking first watch?" he asked

"I don't think we need to be on watch tonight," Hanuu replied. "I don't think the beasts are going to bother us in here, and I highly doubt Jolee will try to kill us in our sleep- especially before we get those kids off his lawn."

Carth raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

"Positive."

He watched as she went about her business; striping out of her outer robed and breeches, pulling her hair into a bun, sliding gracefully into her sleeping roll. She stared at the ceiling; he stared at her, although in the dark, neither of them could see their targets very well.

"You know, you could stop ogling me and go to sleep any minute now," Hanuu said conversationally.

"No, I don't think I will," he replied. "If you don't go to sleep I get to tie you to your bedroll, remember?"

"I thought you said I would only get to dream about that."

"I thought you said those dreams were the reason you didn't sleep."

"Oh, touche."

"Ha! Point for me!" Carth cried triumphantly. There was a loud thump, and suddenly an equipment pack was three centimeters away from his nose.

"Would you two shut up!" Mission cried. "I'm trying to sleep!"

"Listen to the Twi'lek!" Jolee's voice came faintly through the walls. "She's got sense!"

"Alright, alright," Carth said. "Hanuu was just about to go to sleep anyway."

"Fine," Hanuu huffed, rolling over so that her back was to him. As he was unable to make out her face, he simply listened as she feel asleep, her breathing deepened and evened out.

* * *

He dreamt again that night.

For a moment, he though he was back on Telos. He felt the same edge of panic, the same universe-crushing anguish. As he opened his eyes, he fully expected to see his wife's body clutched in his arms.

He didn't; the only body he held was his own, uncomfortably alive one. Momentarily disorientated, it took him a minute or two to absorb the facts that were confronting him.

He was dressed in only his underwear. He ached all over. He was in a force cage.

Someone- no, two someones- were screaming.

Stilly groggy and confused, he stood, looking around for the source of the noise. He found it to his left, where two more force cages sat. In the one next to him, Bastila's unconscious body gave a final jerk as her torture field deactivated. The cage beyond hers, however, was still active; horror flooded through him as he watch Hanuu convulse in pain.

"She's very beautiful, isn't she?" asked a voice. Carth thought he had a pretty good idea of who, but as he turned around, it wasn't Saul he saw, but Dustil, wearing the much-hated uniform of the Sith, and working the controls for the torture fields.

"No," he breathed.

"She isn't? Come now, Father," Dustil chided him. "While you have been known to be both stupid and blind, I doubt you posses either affliction to such a degree you can't appreciate a pretty woman when you see her."

"Dustil?" Carth called, bewildered.

Dustil looked at him, his yellowing eyes filled with rage and hatred.

"It's me, Father," he acknowledged softly.

"Dustil, deactivate the torture field, please," he ordered, trying to put a note of authority in his shaking voice.

"No," Dustil answered flatly. Hanuu screamed; he had intensified the field instead.

"Dustil, please, shut it off," he begged.

"Why?"

"Because you're hurting her!"

Dustil laughed- a deep rumbling chuckle that set his hairs on end. "I didn't mean that."

"Then what did you mean?" Carth asked desperately. Mercifully, Dustil lowered the torture field; Hanuu collapsed on the floor of the cage and moaned pitifully.

"I meant 'why did you leave us'. For her?"

It was so unexpected a question that Carth had no answer. Dustil made to turn up the field again.

"I didn't know her!" he blurted. Dustil's hand froze over the controls.

"You left us because you didn't know her?" he repeated, and turned the dial. Hanuu's screams began anew.

"I didn't leave because of anything to do with Hanuu!" Carth cried. "I left because I had a duty, to protect the Republic, to protect you!"

Dustil turned the field up even higher. Although Carth couldn't tear his eyes away from his son, he could here the unmistakable sounds of flesh hitting energy field from Hanuu's cage.

"Please Dustil, turn it off!" Carth yelled. "She has nothing to do with Telos, with you or your mother! If you want to hurt someone for that, hurt me!"

"Not involved!" Dustil spat. "Father, she's the key to all of this, She's-"

Blinding pain up his arm woke him up; he had been thrashing around so much in his sleep that he had managed to stick himself on Mission's vibroblade.

"Carth?" Mission called sleepily from her bedroll.

"I'm fine, go back to sleep," he replied, separating the blade from his arm as quietly as he could. Now that it wasn't actually stuck in his arm he could see that the cut wasn't all that deep, and although it was longer than he would have preferred, he could still heal it with a medpack. He found one quickly enough, applied it, and looked around the room. It was still dark outside, but this far down, he doubted there would be much difference between midday and midnight. Hanuu's bedroll was empty, but looked slept in; perhaps she actually had gotten a few hours rest last night, perhaps she just wanted to make him think that. Mission's vibroblade glittered with his blood; he found a handkerchief, wiped it clean and began to pack up his things. He had a feeling they had along day ahead of them, and the less time he spent brooding and the more he spent actually doing something, the better.

And with that thought firmly in mind, he finished his packing and went to go look for Hanuu.

* * *

He found her just outside the hut, quietly sipping some caffa out of a clay cup; three other mugs sat besides her as she watched some tachs play in the lone beam of sunlight that penetrated the forest this far down.

"Those all for you, beautiful?" he asked, gesturing at the cups.

"I wish," she replied without taking her eyes off the tachs. "Help yourself, flyboy."

He did so, carefully setting himself down between her and the cups. More because he had nothing better to do than anything else he took a sip of his caffa, and nearly spat it back out again. Not only did it has the consistency of a mud slick, it had an earthy tang he suspected had dissolved from the cup itself, and burned like lighter fluid down his throat.

"Thanks for the warning," he spluttered, trying to get rid of the sticky aftertaste on his tongue without actually tasting it.

"I didn't think it was that bad," Hanuu replied by way of apology. Carth continued to splutter. "But then again, I am used to the watered down crap they serve on Nar Shadaa."

She handed him a canteen of water. He took it gratefully and was just about to say thanks when something about the way she held herself, the way the dim light played across her features brought his nightmare tumbling back.

"Carth?" Hanuu asked concernedly.

Shoving his dream back into a dark recess of his mind where it belonged, he muttered a quick reply. "I'm fine. I- The caffa's really horrible."

"I don't buy that for a minute." she informed him

"Well, that's your choice, beautiful," he snapped. "The most you're getting out of me is that this is the worst cup of caffa I've ever had."

"Fine, be that way," Hanuu snapped. "Just try to remember that you aren't the only one who has nightmares."

Carth winced. "What gave me away?" he asked.

"I have a lot of first hand experience in that area," Hanuu reminded him. "And the way you're holding your arm is sort of a give away to your state of mind."

"Uh... I didn't-"

"Relax. I know you aren't _that _self-destructive," Hanuu assured him with a wave of her hand. "I almost skewered myself on those things this morning too. Now let me take a look at that."

Carth rolled up his sleeve. "I already gave it a shot of kolto, I'll be fine."

"Yeah, looks like," Hanuu confirmed. Carth rolled his sleeve back down.

"So... what was your nigtmare about?" he asked, before she could begin to interrogate him.

"Force lessons with Master Vrook, and before you ask, yes, I am serious," Hanuu told him. "He was telling me that the dark side corrupts the body as well as the soul, and I asked him if that was why he didn't have any hair left. He started spluttering, turned sort of purple and fell on the floor. I went over to him to ask if he was alright and then he turned into the Start Map and I turned into Revan-" she stopped abruptly at the bemused expression on his face. "Well, I didn't say it made any sense!"

"Lucky you," Carth snorted.

"I take that to mean your nightmare was too coherent for your tastes?" Hanuu inquired.

"Damn right it was," Carth agreed vehemently. "It felt- not real, exactly, but like some sort of a memory. An echo of reality."

Hanuu regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. "You know, that sounds a bit like those vision Bastila and I have of the Star Maps..."

Carth was already shaking his head as she finished that sentence. "No, if I were Force-sensitive, we'd know. And besides, I doubt what happened in my dream actually occurred- or would occur."

Hanuu didn't seem convinced, and looked as though she was going topress the subject. Think quickly, Carth cut her off. "Besides, I've had this sort of dream before. It just means that something I won't like is going to happen," he lied.

Hanuu looked skeptical. "Such as?" she asked.

"Given our current situation? Mission'll be hell to wake up, we'll spend hours traipsing about this beast-infested wood searching for these poachers, spend a few hours dealing with them, before traipsing back here, too tired to do anything other than fall asleep."

"Isn't that a cheerful thought," Hanuu snorted. "You're just a little ray of sunshine this morning aren't you?"

* * *

His predictions, however, turned out to be more or less accurate. True, the poachers didn't take hours to deal with, but Hanuu insisted on searching through all the junk Czerka left behind, and on having Mission collect the mines, which slowed them down some. By the time they had dragged themselves and their bounty back to Jolee's hut, their second week on Kashyyyk had come to a close.

"No sense heading out tonight," Jolee told them cheerfully. "Feel free to sleep here agin I've got plenty of room."

Mission once again collapsed on her pallet at the earliest opportunity. Carth was beginning to worry about her; despite what Hanuu said about her being tough, and the evidence therein, he still felt this was too far over her head. And, to be completely pragmatic, if they had to cover for her mistakes, it would take a lot longer to find the Star Map. Surely Hanuu could recognize that?

Sleep wasn't coming easily to Carth that night. He was too worried about the impending day's trials to rest; there were still too many inconsistencies, too many unanswered questions.

'Of course,' said Hanuu's voice in his head. 'That may be because you haven't asked any.'

Carth nearly jumped out of his skin; for a moment, wildly improbable thoughts concerning the Force bond ran through his mind before he realized that rather than it being symptomatic of some sort of telepathic connection, it was simply his conscience, speaking up for the first time in almost three years.

At first, he felt irrationally angry; the last time it had spoken up, it had told him to reenlist. And now it had the audacity to talk to him using _her_ voice? What was happening to him? First he found himself becoming attracted to Hanuu and now-

Wait...attracted? To Hanuu?

Well... okay, she was attractive, anyone with eyes could see that. But somehow the idea of actually_ being attracted _to her had never crossed his mind. He thought for a moment...

_"Handsome thug?" Hanuu asked, emerald eyes twinkling._

Okay, there was some attraction. Now what?

The question chased itself around his mind until he finally feel into a restless sleep.


	7. Kashyyyk Part Four

Carth awoke with a clear plan of action.

First, he would ask Hanuu for any information she had on Jolee, and try to keep his paranoia and anger in check if- and when- it turned out that she knew more than he did. Secondly, he'd ignore the epiphany of his attraction until it went away, or their mission ended, whichever came first. He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to go about doing that last part, since now that he knew he had a funny feeling that he'd stumble over his words around her even more than usual, and she was bound to pick up on it, but he'd deal with that rancor when it charged him.

The first part, though, worked out surprisingly well.

"I don't think I know much more than you, but now that you mention it..." she sipped her caffa thoughtfully. Carth marveled how she didn't even grimace- today's batch was even worse than yesterday's. That stuff she drank on Nar Shadaa must have been actual crap. "On Datooine there was a saying: 'pulling a Bindo'. It meant a Jedi falling in love. No one I talked to actually knew where that particular turn of phrase originated, but one student I talked to said that it was actually supposed to be 'Bendu', which was an ancient order of Force Sensitives which believed in neither repressing their emotions nor allowing themselves to be consumed by them."

"Huh?" Carth asked.

"They were grey-siders," Hanuu clarified.

"Okay... do they have anything to do with Jolee?"

"Not really; accept that I think he might me a grey-sider too."

"And what is a grey-sider exactly?"

"Someone who serves neither the light side or the dark side of the Force," Hanuu explained. "And is, thusly, grey."

"Which is why you couldn't sense his alignment when we first encountered him," Carth finished.

"Exactly: he didn't have one," Hanuu confirmed, taking a triumphant sip of her caffa. Carth grimaced for her.

"How the hell can you drink that stuff?" he demanded.

"You took a cup too," she pointed out, amused.

"You gave it to me," he protested.

"You were asking for caffa."

"I meant real caffa. Not ground-up earwax or whatever the hell this is," he muttered. She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. "Is there anything else you know about our incontinent friend?"

"Well," Hanuu's mouth pursed into a straight line. "I'm not sure... but I think he might have been to guy who smuggled my mother off Deralia."

"What? A Jedi smuggler? I mean- other than you?"

"Looks like," Hanuu replied.

"How do you figure that?" Carth asked, stunned.

"I haven't the slightest clue how- or why- he became a smuggler, but I know my mother named the twins after him. 'Joleen' and 'Binda'..."

"Jolee Bindo," Carth finished. She nodded.

"But beyond that, I know nothing you don't know," she concluded. Then, turning to face the refresher and raising her voice, she called. "Part of which is that the old Jedi should been done by now!"

"Do you mind?" Jolee snapped "I'm listening to a very interesting conversation here!"

Hanuu huffed and made a rude hand gesture at the outhouse. It was obvious from the annoyed expression on her face that she hadn't know he was listening in. She turned back to Carth. "Old people," she complained in a loud, carrying voice. "They take so long to move their bowels."

"Must be all the tach stuff he's been eating," Carth offered.

They both turned back to the outhouse expectantly, but there was no reply.

"Well, I'm going to go take a walk," Hanuu declared after a moment's silence, taking Carth's caffa and draining it in one gulp. "See if I can't find a promising clump of trees or something."

"Okay. I'll give a yell if old, bald, and wrinkled finishes before nightfall," Carth told her.

"You that that. I wouldn't hold my breath though- or anything else, for that matter," she advised him, before sauntering off in the trees.

No sooner had she disappeared from view than Jolee emerged from the refresher, still adjusting his robes. Carth made to holler for Hanuu, but Jolee stopped him.

"Hold on a minute, son," he said. "I was hoping you and I could have a little chat before Hanuu finishes returning nature's call."

"What about?" Carth asked suspiciously.

"The pretty little girl herself, of course," Jolee replied.

Carth decided that playing dumb was the best course of action. "Mission? There's not much to tell. She just sleeps mostly, these days."

Jolee snorted. "No, I don't mean Mission."

"Oh?" he asked. Jolee frowned.

"Stop being deliberately obtuse, boy," he ordered. "You're more than thick enough for the average Republic grunt naturally. Now answer my question."

"I'm sorry. Somewhere in that sentence my grunt level intelligence lost track of the conversation. Did you actually ask a question?" he inquired innocently.

"I was asking about Hanuu, you moron."

"What about her?"

"Well, I'd appreciate having a little more information about her," Jolee explained impatiently.

"What sort of information?" Carth questioned. Jolee threw his hands in the air agitatedly.

"The kind of information you probably don't know and I couldn't beat out of you with a stick even if you did," Jolee grumbled. "But I'll settle for the answers to the simple questions."

"What sort of simple-"

"Oh for the love of Nomi Sunrider's unmentionables!" Jolee cried exasperatedly. "You're the slowest guy I've met in two decades!"

"I'm the only guy you've met in two decades," Carth reminded him. "And I really gotta go so unless this is going somewhere I'll just-"

"How long have you known Hanuu?" Jolee interrupted.

"About a year," Carth answered, making a bee-line for the refresher. Once again, Jolee intercepted him.

"And was she a Jedi when you first met?"

"No- she was a freelancer serving on my ship. We were attacked over Taris; she and I ended up working together to get off the planet before it was destroyed," Carth informed him. "Now if you'll excuse me..."

"Just one more question, son," Jolee assured him. "Then you can piss 'til the sun goes nova. What was she up to before all this?"

"She was a smuggler," Carth said, brushing past him. "Refugees, food and meds mostly, from what she's told me. We caught her on her first spice run. End of story. Goodbye!"

He closed the door on Jolee's pensive face.

* * *

Hanuu was waiting for him when he opened the refresher door again, Jolee hovering in the background.

"I thought you were going to yell?" she asked.

"I was- I got ambushed instead," Carth muttered. Hanuu looked at him, confused. "I'll explain later- something up?"

"Yeah. I found something," Hanuu replied. "Come on, I'll show you."

She lead him to the clearing and over to what he had originally assumed to be some ricks, but, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a broken droid.

"Listen," she ordered him, hitting the playback. He did, with dawning horror.

"Matton needs to hear this," he said as soon as it finished.

"I know, I know," Hanuu groaned. "But it'll take us the better part of a week to go all the way up to Eli's stand and back again. If we go back without a bleeding good reason- literally- Chuundar might take away our access to the Shadowlands. And then we'd be screwed."

Carth stayed silent. As distasteful as it was, she was probably right; their mission to get the Star Maps was more important.

"Dammit!" Hanuu cried suddenly. "I hate choices like this! I mean, why can't the right thing and the necessary thing always be the _same_ thing? Life would be so much simpler that way!"

"I think that might be why it is that way," Carth muttered, before a thought struck him. "But in this case, I think we might have a third option."

"Such as?"

"Mission. I've noticed she's been getting a little tired lately, well, actually, it's more like-"

"Drop-dead exhausted. Yeah, I noticed that, too. I'm reluctant to send her back alone, though, if you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting. Unless you feel like going back to the ship..."

"No. Absolutely not."

"You sure?"

"The phrase 'no way in hell' comes to mind."

"Because I've noticed you're looking a little worn out yourself..."

"No, Hanuu."

She sighed "So...we're right back at square one."

They sat contemplating the droid for a few minutes, before another idea occurred to him. "Didn't you say that if you meditated, you and Bastila would be able to communicate even if you were on different planets."

"Yeah, but only if we were both meditating. The chances of her meditating right now are what, one in a million?"

"I'd say it's probably more like one in a half. All she _does_ is meditate," Carth told her.

"Do you really think it's worth a shot?"

Carth shrugged. "What have we got to loose?" he asked. For an answer, Hanuu closed her eyes and went impossibly still.

"You were right," she said after a beat, a small smile gracing her face. "Bastila says she and Juhani will meet Mission at the village."

"See? I told you so."

"I'll never doubt you again," Hanuu intoned mockingly. "Now, all I have to do is disassemble this droid, and..."

She quickly severed the head of the droid, the remains of which promptly exploded. They both fell back with cried of pain and surprise.

"Carth?" she asked, concerned.

"I'm fine!" he yelled back, gingerly rubbing his forehead. Small bits of ash danced in front of his eyes. "But I don't think my eyebrows are very sexy anymore."

Hanuu batted his hand away from the offending area and healed it, sniggering slightly. "No, they aren't. That's okay though, I'll just study your divine elbows until they grown back."

Carth snorted. He was about to retort when Mission came tumbling out into the clearing, her combat vest on backward and vibroblades unsheathed.

"What's going on? Who threw a grenade?" she demanded breathlessly.

* * *

Needless to say, Mission was less than thrilled with the idea.

"You're sending me back? Why?" she asked, looking beseechingly between Carth and Hanuu. "It's because I'm a kid, ain't it? Look, I know there are drawbacks about me being my age, but most of them have to do with age restriction in cantinas so I don't really see that being much of a problem down here. I mean, it's the Shadowlands! Not even Czerka has thought to build a cantina down here-"

"Mission, we're not sending you back because you're a kid. We're sending you back because you're about to keel over. You're so exhausted you can't even walk straight, let alone fight off whatever sort of creatures we're going to find down here. We've got a long, tough road ahead of us, and I don't want you being killed because you're asleep on your feet. This isn't a debate; someone is going to have to bring this droid to Matton and since you're the one most likely to get yourself hurt you're going!" Hanuu interrupted her.

Mission blinked. "Well, I suppose when you say it like that, it does sound like I'm a liability," she began slowly, but Hanuu cut her off again.

"Mission you're not a liability, you're just tired. So's Carth, for that matter. But since I don't seem to be able to shake him, he's staying."

"Gee thanks," Carth remarked. Both girls ignored him.

"Alright, I'll go back to the ship," Mission sighed heavily.

"And I'll go with you to the basket," Hanuu stated firmly. "I don't want you to stumble into a viper krinath, and once you get out of the Shadowlands it shouldn't be as bad."

Mission opened her mouth to protest, but Hanuu silenced her with a weary glare.

"Carth," Hanuu said. "Would you mind sorting through our stuff, and making some room for extra healing kits and rations? I have a feeling we might be a while and I'd rather not have to rely on Jolee's hut as a base of operations.

"It's not a hut," Jolee complained, appearing from out of nowhere over Carth shoulder. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

"I'm sorry. You're oh-so-humble-abode," Hanuu corrected herself, smirking slightly.

"Couldn't I come with you?" Carth blurted out before he even realized the words were out of his mouth. Hanuu shot him a questioning look, and his mind worked furiously to come up with an excuse that didn't involve his desire not to be left alone with the old man. "I mean, I was bored out of my mind on Datooine, and then again on the ship, and now you want me to do inventory?"

Hanuu rolled her eyes. "I won't be gone more than a few hours, I promise you. Now go grab your gear Mish, and let's get going."

It wasn't long after they had disappeared that Carth found himself working next to Jolee, who kept shooting him appraising glances as he worked on his healing kits. As he worked, the insides of Carth's skull began to itch, and shortly afterwards he developed a throbbing headache. Jolee was staring at him now, furtively, but still staring at him, a frown of concentration on his face.

"Do you mind?" Carth snapped finally. "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but stop it right now!"

Jolee looked astonished, and Carth's headache receded. "You could feel that?" he asked

"Gee, what gave me away?" Carth quipped, pressing his fingers into his temple to ease the phantom pain.

"Listen son, I have neither the time nor the patience to listen to your rancor-tempered drivel. Now answer the question; did you feel what I was doing or what?"

"If by 'felt you' you mean 'developed a sudden, splitting headache', then yes, I felt you." he bit out. "Of course, I imagine most people develop those around you."

"Didn't I say I didn't want to hear it? I'm just trying to figure out if you're not as dumb as you seem." Jolee defended himself. "Not that it would be hard, mind you."

"Cute," Carth snarled. "Any cuter and you'd be a Gammorean's brother."

"Who says I'm not already?"

Carth groaned. He could feel his headache returning already.

"Thank you for the compliment, though," Jolee continued, oblivious. "It takes real effort to be properly irreverent at my age, and it's nice to know I've still got it."

Carth didn't dignify him with a response.

There was perhaps two hour blissful silence before Jolee broke it again.

"You know who you remind me of?" he asked.

"Someone you have a long, involved allegory about?" Carth guessed.

"Oo, 'allegory'. That's a big technical word for a grunt like you," Jolee mocked. "And for your information, I was going to say Ulic Qel-Droma."

"Huh?" Carth asked, startled. "How the hell do I remind you of a Sith Lord?"

"A _temporary_ Sith Lord," Jolee corrected him. "Didn't start out that way, and didn't end up like it, did he? Not that any one will remember it, I bet. History is picky like that."

His voice trailed off, a pensive, almost nostalgic look overcoming his face. "In answer to your question, though, you and he have the same deadly sense of self-importance. And," he added with a small smile. "You seem to have attracted to attentions of your very own Nomi Sunrider."

Carth frowned at him; the only thing he could remember from those dusty history lessons was that Master Sunrider was skilled in the art of Battle Meditation. "How do you know about Bastila?" he asked.

"Who the hell is Bastila?" Jolee demanded. "I'm talking about Hanuu you gizka-brained nerf-herder! You know, the pretty Jedi lady whose probably been making eyes at you since long before you ever met me?"

Carth's stomach rolled lazily. "And this has what to do with Nomi Sunrider and Ulic Qel-Droma?" he demanded.

"Don't they teach you anything in schools these days?" Jolee asked, throwing his hands into the air in frustration. "They were lovers!"

"What?" Carth exclaimed. Mission must have been right; he and Hanuu were giving off some sort of vibe- a weird, mind altering vibe. "Look, I don't know what your game here is, old man, but, Jedi aren't allowed to-"

"Banthashit. That whole 'ban on love' nonsense is a new, and hopefully fleeting thing the Jedi instituted after the Exar Kun Wars in the hopes that it would prevent more Jedi from falling. Fat lot of good it did them." Jolee muttered.

"Okay..." Carth replied slowly. "And this has to do with what, exactly?"

Jolee snorted. "Think about it. I'm sure it'll come to you eventually."

Carth didn't plan on replying, but all too soon, Jolee returned to staring at him, and his skull began to itch.

"Look, Hanuu and I... it's not going to happen. Even if it wasn't always that way, the Jedi today don't allow attachments. And, I- I'm still- I had a wife. And I can't let go of her memory. Not yet."

Jolee blinked. "Okay, then."

Hanuu returned less than an hour later, putting an end to the threat of further interrogation.

* * *

The trek to the force field was everything Carth had feared it would be: trees, he and Hanuu bickering, trees, Hanuu and Jolee bickering, more trees, Jolee making vague, rambling references to their conversation, which, thankfully, went right over her head, still more trees, and viper krinath. He was so glad to see the purple glow of the force field that he almost ran into a mine.

"Kids these days," Jolee muttered, pulling him safely away.

"One more remark like that, old man..." Carth threatened half-heartedly.

"Be nice, Carth," Hanuu admonished. "He's just trying to help. It's not his fault he's half-senile. Really, we should be grateful that's all he is; anyone else would have gone complete insane and started foaming at the mouth an walking around in nothing but a loincloth."

Carth wrinkled his nose in disgust; Jolee barked out a rusty laugh.

"Don't tell me the Jedi are teaching their students the art of the backhanded compliment now, are they?" he asked

"Nah, that's something I picked up on Nar Shadaa."

"Oh, the Jedi finally got off their high horses and branched out into smuggling then?"

"Yeah- you would believe the currents of life you'll find in cantinas," she remarked.

Jolee laughed again; Hanuu stopped in front of the force field, studying it. "This is it?"

"That's it," Jolee confirmed. "Czerka put it in a while back..."

Carth waited impatiently for Jolee's musings to stop, then stepped through the force field after him. And stopped short.

Mandalorians.

There were three of them; your normal blue-clad neocrusaders, from what Carth could see. They had ganged up on a lone Wookie; one of them was attacking it as they other two circled menacingly, preventing its retreat. As they watched, the Wookie dealt a killing blow with a roar, and the remaining Mandalorians moved in. Cursing, Carth unholstered his blasters.

"Di'kute!" Hanuu shouted. Carth started, almost bringing his blasters to bear at her before he remembered that one of the many languages she was fluent in was Mando'a. The Mandalorians wheeled around in surprise. "Usen'ye!"

And with that she charged, activating not only her own yellow blade but a shorter, red one as she went.

"Well son," Jolee proclaimed, going after the second Mandalorian. "Looks like we're fighting."

Carth was already aiming his blasters at Hanuu's target. He fell quickly, and he shifted to take aim at Jolee's. Suddenly, he heard the unmistakable sound of a stealth field generator deactivating behind him. He turned around on the spot and managed to fire off one round before the vibrosword's point slipped between the plates of his armor and through his chest.

He collapsed on the ground, Hanuu's shouts echoed through his ears.

* * *

Mandalorian Translations(for those of you who are less geeky than me)

Di'kute- dickwads

Usen-ye- fuck off

Aren't you glad you know that now?


	8. Kashyyyk Part Five

He woke up on the Ebon Haw- he'd recognize the ceiling anywhere.

"Hey, you're awake!" Mission cried. Carth tried to sit up, but found that someone had replaced all his insides with durasteel and gelatin while he was out.

"Urgh?" he gargled. He coughed, and found that once he started, he couldn't stop.

"Bastila!" Mission yelled, panicked. "A little help, please!"

Bastila ran into what Carth belatedly realized was the medbay, looking worn and worried.

"Don't try to move too quickly- you may not be fully recovered yet," Bastila cautioned him, playing with the buttons on the kolto bed, and Carth managed to catch his breath. "Mission, why don't you go get him a glass of water?"

The Twi'lek left, and quickly returned with a drink in hand. "Sip, don't gulp." Bastila ordered firmly, holding it to his lips. Carth drank greedily.

"Wha' 'appen?" he asked.

"From what I understand, you, Hanuu, and the older Jedi ran into some Mandalorians in the Shadowlands. One of them snuck up on you in a stealth field generator and stabbed you through your armor, puncturing one of your lungs. Between the two of them, they managed to stabilize you enough to move you and carry you back here. Jolee put you in a healing trance; we weren't expecting you to wake up for a few more days."

Carth tried to nod, but found the muscles in his neck weren't working properly and he ended up giving himself vertigo instead.

"You will probably not regain full use of your motor functions for a day or so yet. In the mean time, try to get some rest," Bastila's voice advised as the room spun lazily into nothingness.

He awoke again some time later, considerably more sore, but able to move. He heaved himself into a semi-sitting position with a groan; outside his line of sight T3 blurbbled happily and zoomed out of the room, causing him to almost fall out of bed in surprise. He caught himself just as Mission entered the room.

"Oh good, you're up again!" she cheered. "Little guy was chirping so fast I couldn't tell if he was sayin' you were up or had mutated into a rakghoul. Just let me go get Bastila"

Carth caught her arm before she could leave. "Don't get Bastila," he croaked. "If I have to listen to her lecture now, I'll puke."

Mission snickered. "How about some water instead, then?"

"That I can deal with," Carth replied, releasing her.

Mission came back with another cup, and Carth drank just as thirstily as before. "What'd I miss?" he asked when he finished.

"Well, you were attacked by Mandalorians..." Mission began, but Carth cut her off.

"I heard that part. Where's Hanuu now?" he asked

"Back in the Shadowlands. Canderous and Jolee went with her."

"She took Canderous?" Carth asked, surprised. They were attacked by Mandalorians; why would she want the bring another one along? What if he decided he wanted to be with his people again and turned on her?

"Yeah. After Canderous heard that you'd run into some of his people he kept pestering Hanuu about it, so when Jolee finally kicked her out of the medbay they went into the cargo hold and had an amazingly spectacular shouting match in Mando'a. You could even hear it out on the Walkway; I know because I went to go visit with Matton so I wouldn't bust my eardrums listening to the two of them going at it, and we could still hear them. They calmed down after Sasha came running out into the common area, though. Oh, you haven't seen her yet! She's the cutest thing ever, even though Hanuu and Canderous are the only ones who can understand what she's saying, and-"

"Okay, I no longer know what's going on," he stated. With a pang, he remembered that Dustil had developed the same speech patterns around the age of eleven, when he'd discovered the joys of model shipbuilding and first-person flight simulators. Morgana had, half-resigned, half-proud, commented that he was destined to follow in his footsteps, and become the best pilot in the Fleet, and drive whatever woman he married insane. "I take it Matton's a free man now?"

Mission nodded slowly, deliberately. "Did you catch that?" she asked.

Carth sighed. "Yes. Now, who's Sasha? And what were Hanuu and Canderous shouting about?"

"Sasha's a stowaway- a human girl around the age of six. From what Hanuu deciphered, she was captured by Mandalorians on Datooine, and when she managed to escape, she hid in the cargo hold. As to what they were 'discussing'..." Mission shrugged. "I don't speak very much Mando'a, but I got the impression that they were both very peeved about something- my guess is the guys who skewered you. The word 'shabla' was used quiet a lot."

"'Shabla'?"

"The Mando'a equivalent of fracking," Mission informed him.

"Ah," Well, if Canderous really was upset at his kinsman- although he wasn't entirely sure why that would be, they seemed pretty typically Mandalorian to him- then at least that meant that he

wasn't likely to betray Hanuu. Yet. "That bad?"

"What part of 'you could hear them on the Walkway' didn't you understand?" Mission demanded.

Carth opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by Bastila skidding into the room. "Carth's awake! And you didn't inform me! Mission, you-"

"I asked her not to," Carth interrupted before Mission could respond. "I felt a little nauseous when I woke up and didn't want to puke all over your robes."

"And then hear about how vomit leads to the darkside," Mission put in. Carth shot her a look, which she dutifully ignored.

Bastila spluttered incoherently for a moment, then took a deep breath, probably mentally reciting the Jedi Code. "Mission," she began, perhaps a bit more forcefully that she intended.

"Bastila, keep it down why don't you? Carth just came out of a coma-"

"Healing trance. It's a healing trance! If you're going to try and order me about, which is a ludicrous idea to begin with-"

"Alright, alright, a healing trance, do you really think that you're preaching is-"

"Would everybody please be quiet?" Carth groaned, cradling his head in his hands. "Gees, I had just managed to forget how bloody annoying everyone on this ship is..."

It was only after a few beats of silence had passed that he realized that he had said that last bit aloud.

"And now I'm kind of hoping that you two remember what a talent I have for sticking my foot in my mouth," he added quickly.

Mission patted his consolingly on the back. "Don't worry Carth. It's as unforgettable as your jacket."

Bastila sniggered, and Carth sighed again. He still wasn't quiet sure what was wrong with his jacket.

* * *

Perhaps it was simply because Ordo was away, but everyone seemed more pleasant now than they had before- there was less shouting, and with a few exceptions of the teenaged Twi'lek sort, everyone was more or less polite with each other. Juhani's presence seemed to change as well. She had introduced Mission to dejarik, much to the teenager's delight, and often meditated with Bastila, which seemed to make her less... cold. She was still meditating more often than not, but this time around, he could see that it was more a desire not to miss anymore of Hanuu's messages (and there were many over the next several days) than the desire not to associate with the common folk. Sasha also probably helped; the three women (and Carth himself, when Mission wasn't around to make smart-aleck comments about Hanuu having whipped him already- he really didn't feel like explaining about his family) doted on her, and having a skittish little girl on board made everyone go out of their way to avoid having loud fights that would scare her. During her free time, Mission had Sasha 'help' her and T3 rewire the communications system on the Hawk so that it was compatible with their communicators: this would allow the two groups to stay in touch as long as they stayed with in five hundred miles of each other- something which, hopefully, would be pretty easy to do. Next time, they wouldn't have to rely on the Force-bond to keep in touch.

It was five weeks into their stay on Kashyyyk when Bastila finally emerged from her meditations, grinning so broadly she scared Sasha, a sure sign the Hanuu had contacted her with good news.

"She found the Star Map!" Bastila said, as excitedly as it was possible for her to get. "And wants us to meet her at the Wookie village right away!"

"Finally!" Mission cheered, pumping her fists in the air. "We get to rescue Zaalbar!"

The rescue, however, had already taken place by the time they arrived in the village, perhaps because the were delayed by a debate over what to do with Sasha (Mission ended up rigging a sling of sorts for T3). Jolee and Canderous were waiting by the entrance of the village for them, although they were both too involved in a staring contest to give any detailed answers.

"She's over at the Holder of Laws, clearing up a mess Czerka left behind," Jolee informed them without taking his eyes off the Mandalorian. "Now scat!"

Carth wanted to press the matter, but one look at Bastila's face told him it would be better to leave before the Jedi's head exploded.

They wandered around the village for a while, not knowing where the Holder of Laws was, until Mission spotted Zaalbar through the crowd.

"Big Z!" she cried, flinging herself through the Wookiees. Zaalbar gave a joyous shout and they embraced.

"See," Hanuu said tiredly. "I told you we'd get him back."

She looked very... bedraggled. Blood, sweat, and mud covered her robes, her hair hung down in greasy strands over her face, and she listed to one side.

"You look like crap," Carth told her.

Hanuu shot him a tired glare. "You- well, actually, compared to the last time I saw you. you're a vision of health."

"Yeah... not having a vibrosword in my side did wonders for my physique," Carth replied.

"You're going back to ship to sleep now, right?"

"No, I have to help the Wookiees overthrow Czerka first," Hannu told him.

There was a beat, perhaps two, of silence before Carth realized the she wasn't joking. "Of all the- Hanuu, you just spent three weeks mucking about the lower Shadowlands, being attacked by Mandalorians and terentateks and everything else, and now you wanna go fight a war!"

"It's not a war. It's a rebellion," Hanuu corrected him.

"It doesn't matter what you want to call it, beautiful, it's still going to involve a whole lot of fighting and running and you don't look fit to be doing either!" Carth exclaimed.

"Oh? And do you really think you're the best judge of that?" Hanuu asked.

"Considering how you're plastered in mud and I can still see the circles under your eyes? Yes."

"Well, tough. I don't." she snapped.

"Well, tough. I don't either."

"So we're in agreement that you'll butt out and let me finish this thing?"

"Not at all. I'll give you points for sheer bone-headed stubbornness, though," he said, glaring at her. She glared right back.

"Do yourself a favor, and don't. The way things are going Mission will end up beating us both anyway." She made to move past him, but he stopped her.

"Don't even think about, gorgeous. You are not allowed to move from this spot until you get eight hours of sleep."

"You want me to sleep for eight hours- which is a very long time for me, by the way- here? On this spot? In the middle of the village?"

"No," Carth replied, "I expect you to pass out here, on this spot, in the middle of the village, at which point I will carry you back to the ship and you will sleep for eight hours."

"You better not," Hanuu warned him. "No one will believe we aren't together if you pull that."

"Is Jolee still going on about that?" Carth whined.

"Jolee?" Hanuu asked, looking surprised. "No, he just sort of stands off to one side and looks amused as Canderous makes his little 'comments'. I swear, if I hear one more 'Hanuu and Republic in a sack' jokes, I'll steal all his clothes while he's in the refresher and replace them with Juhani's uniform."

Carth had a sudden mental image of the Mandalorian, bursting out of Juhani's robes and screeching in a hideous Cathari accent: "Vhere the frack are my clothes, Jedi!"

"How about we find a hammock or something for you to crash in instead?"

"For eight hours? Not on your life."

"Seven?"

"Three."

"Six."

"Five."

"Done."

"Good. Now let me go clear things up with Freyrr..."

"Sure thing, but just so you know, I'm following you around for the entire time until you go to sleep," Carth warned.

Hanuu opened her mouth to argue, but at that point Bastila interrupted her, a strained smile on her face.

"Hanuu," she began. "Zaalbar seems to be under the impression that we are helping his people overthrow Czerka."

"Yeah," Hanuu confirmed. "Are you under the impression that we're not?"

"I am under the impression," Bastila said shrilly. "That we are on a mission of the utmost importance and cannot by waylaid by the problems of Wookiees!"

Silence descended upon the village, as every Wookie turned to stare at them. At that same instant, Hanuu's entire demeanor changed. Before, she had be radiating exhaustion, her eyes dulled and posture slumped; now, cold fury drew her up straight and tall, so that she seemed bigger than Zaalbar, and Carth could have sworn her eyes were glowing.

"Bastila, what do you think the objective of our mission is?" she asked quietly. "Because it seems to me that you and I are operating under different directives."

"That is obvious," Bastila sniffed, seemingly oblivious to the durasteel in the older woman's tone.

"I am glad you realize you're wrong. Now if we can, I'd like to return to the ship-"

"I never said I was wrong," Hanuu corrected flatly. "If anything, I implied you were such. And you never answered my question."

Bastila appeared taken aback for a moment before swiftly regaining her composure. "I hardly think that is a matter to discuss here," she said, looking around at the Wookiees nervously.

"Too bad. We're going to," Hanuu informed her. There was something infinitely frightening in the way she spoke, and the way she stood, that made him feel very small and helpless. He felt a sudden wave of pity for Bastila, who was on the full receiving end, rather than simply watching the exchange.

Bastila frowned, and then sighed in resignation. "Very well, I shall humor you. We are on a mission to find the- the source of the Sith's power, in order to destroy it."

"Why?"

"I'm sorry?" Bastila exclaimed. "Are you seriously asking..?"

"Why do we need to stop the Sith, Bastila?"

"Because they're the Sith!" she cried indignantly.

"And that's where you're wrong," Hanuu declared. "We aren't on this mission, we aren't Jedi because we need to stop the Sith."

"Uh, Hanuu?" Carth began. Hanuu cut him off.

"Let me finish, Carth," she ordered before turning back to her fellow Padawan. "We aren't even Jedi because we wield the Force and resist the darkside. We're Jedi because we have a duty to root out injustice and right wrongs. We're Jedi because we protect innocents. Is our ongoing mission more important on a galactic scale than saving this planet from Czerka? Absolutely. But the galaxy won't fall within the next few days. Here, it's different. Here, we may not have another chance. Here, we have to act now."

Bastila didn't reply, but merely stood there, mouth agape. Several other listener, Carth included, were doing much the same thing.

"If that is all, I'm going to be late for my meeting with Freyrr. Excuse me."

And with that she spun around on her heel and strided away, long dark hair billowing out behind her like a cloak.

* * *

"What in the name of Mandalore's Helm was that?" Ordo exclaimed, breaking the silence.

"I don't know," Carth replied as the Wookiees went back to their normal business, whispering

excitedly among themselves. "Is that some sort of Jedi thing, Bastila?"

"No. No, we aren't given any training for that sort of thing," Bastila answered, looking perturbed.

"That is something she must have... gotten from somewhere else."

"Didn't you say she was some sort of smuggler?" Jolee asked.

Mission snorted. "That was the most un-smugglerlike thing I've ever heard in my entire life."

"That's what it said in her file," Carth answered slowly, keeping the incompleteness of her file tohimself. "Why don't we go ask her about it? Anyone know where Freyrr's place is?"

"The Cheif's Hall is right over this way, if I recall correctly," Jolee informed them, pointing in the

direction Hanuu had gone. "I'm assuming that where they'll be."

Zaalbar growled in what was most likely the affirmative and they all headed off.

Being that they were them and could only manage to be silent under the most dire of circumstances, they made their way through the village in groups of twos and threes. Sasha had fallen asleep in her sling, and T3 was blurbing quiet complaints about the amount of drool that was now pooled on his head. Mission, apparently trying to make up for lost time, was bombarding Ordo with questions about the Shadowlands. Much to his surprise, the Mandalorian gave almost enthusiastic- and certainly loud- answers, rather than using is normal, grunting mode of speech. Jolee and Zaalbar seemed to be exchanging gossip about the villagers, which was confusing to listen to because even though he spoke in Basic, he couldn't tell whether 'Lobawa' was a name or a place or pet. He and Bastila were the only ones who were uncharacteristically silent.

"Credit for your thoughts?" Carth asked finally.

"Huh? Me?" Bastila replied, looking startled.

"Well, I can't help but notice the worried expression on your face," Carth began. Bastila cut him off with a glare.

"I am a Jedi; I do not have emotions strong enough to show on my face," she informed him scathingly.

"Okay, okay!" Carth placated. "I just wanted to know if I had competition in the brooding department, that's all." Bastila sighed. "No, I do not. But now that you mention it, something has been bothering me... something about Hanuu."

"Such as?"

"Have you ever noticed that many of the things Hanuu knows- and does- seem inconsistent with her life as a smuggler?"

"Yeah, pretty much the moment she woke up after we crashed on Taris. But, from what she's told me, she wasn't always a smuggler." They had reached the Hall, and the two of them stopped outside the door and let the others pass ahead of them. "And Hanuu's very... Hanuu. Normal standards don't seem to apply all that well to her."

"Hmm..." was Bastila's only reply, before she walked through the door.

The Cheif's Hall looked more or less like every other building in the village- tall, long, and wooden. If Zaalbar hadn't been there to point it out to him, Carth would have walked by it without a second thought. Inside was more or less the same- there was a large throne at the end of the hall, and some doors to what he assumed were smaller rooms for living in, and perhaps having closed meetings. Hanuu and a Wookie Carth assumed was Freyyr sitting across from one another. Mission whispered that it was probably best to stay still and quiet until Hanuu and Freyyr finished talking; she in Basic, he in Shyirook, making the entire exchange reminiscent of the conversations his mother and older sister had that he would eavesdrop on as a child. From what he could tell, Freyyr acknowledged that the Wookiees could use their help, but was reluctant to accept it without some set price up front. Hanuu countered that they had no need or want of his people's credits. Freyyr didn't want to owe them simply a debt of gratitude, because it would be impossible to repay them for their freedom. Hanuu replied, stressing her words, that the Wookiees didn't owe them anything, regardless of what they were given. Freyyr acknowledged the logic of her argument, but seemed reluctant to concede for reasons that escaped Carth until Hanuu brought in Zaalbar into the mix.

"Your son has sworn a life debt to me. That bond binds me just as closely to him as it does him to me. His troubles are my troubles, and I know the presence of slavers among his people troubles him greatly."

Freyyr blinked and growled a question to Zaalbar, who groaned and pointed to Mission, who said "Don't go looking at me either. I'm just the kid she helped off Taris."

"My planet is called Deralia. I was born there, grew up on Corescant, and have traveled pretty much everywhere since then. This is my first trip to Kashyyyk, however," Hanuu answered.

Freyyr sighed, and then, if the expression on Hanuu's face was anything to go by, acquiesced, gesturing to one of the smaller rooms to the right. "Thank you," she said with a slight incline of the head.

"I take it we just allied ourselves with the Wookiees?" Carth asked Mission

"And got ourselves a place to stay for the night," Hanuu confirmed cheerfully. "Now, who's idea was it to bring the kid down here?"

"Hey!" Mission protested automatically.

"Not you," Hanuu said wearily, pointing to Sasha, who was still drooling on T3's head. "Her."

"Well we couldn't leave her alone on the ship," Carth began.

"And one of you couldn't stay behind to watch her?"

"Well, you did say to meet you here, and none of us wanted to stay on the ship so..." he trailed off at the bemused expression on her face.

"Right, well, there isn't enough space for all of us in that room, so all but four of you will have to go back to the ship. With Sasha and T3."

"I'm staying," Carth volunteered quickly.

"As am I," Bastila added.

"Don't even think about trying to stick me back on that tin can until you're little rebellion is over with," Canderous threatened.

Zaalbar growled something Carth couldn't make out, and Mission perked up. "I call that spot."

"I suppose that means the young Cathar and I will be making our way back to your berth. Goody, I was hoping to fight some more kinrath today."

"Well, now that that's settled, let's move on to the communication problem. Bastila tells me that you made the communicators compatible with the Hawk?" Hanuu asked.

"Yep. Brought a pair with me, too," Mission said proudly, digging though the utility belt she wore to produce a small module.

"Thank you Mission. You give me hope that the galaxy isn't completely doomed," Hanuu

complimented her, tucking the communicator into her pocket. "Alright, so let's just get settled in, and then we can get right to work in the morning."

"Works for me. I'd like to have a word with Miss Shan here before I leave, though," Jolee informed then, before grabbing said Sentinel's arm and dragging her out of the Hall.

"Big Z and I are going to his Dad's place. We're just across the way!" Mission bounced off, followed by Zaalbar.

"I vill go wait for Jolee outside," Juhani muttered, blushing furiously as she walked away, followed by T3 and Sasha.

"Don't do anything to give me nightmares," Canderous grunted, leering as he went away.

"You'll get yours, Ordo," Hanuu grumbled back.

"Is that a promise?" he retorted.

"Yes. For you to get Force-choked in your sleep,"

The Mandalorian laughed and exited, as Carth turned to Hanuu. "Did they all just leave to... give us privacy?"

"Yes," Hanuu replied flatly. There was a small giggle from outside.

"Nothing's happening! Or happened! Or will happen! Give it a rest you _Or'diniise_!" she half-yelled. The giggling stopped.

"You know, whoever decided to stick this particular group of people together needs help for their spice addiction," she muttered, throwing herself into the smaller room Freyyr had indicated.

She looked around, nodding approvingly at the Spartan hammocks, table, and chairs.

"Hey, guess what that's for?" he asked jokingly, indicating the hammock.

"Carth..." she whined.

"Hanuu..." he mocked.

She sighed, then dropped herself into the hammock, which promptly flipped over and deposited her on the floor.

Carth helped her up, grinning broadly.

"Oh shut up," she snapped.

"I didn't say anything, beautiful," he replied.

"Yeah, but you were certainly thinking of some wise cracks," she grumbled.

"Stop pretending that you can read minds," he admonished.

"I don't need to read your mind, it's written all over your smug face," she growled, grabbing the hammock in a wrestlers hold in an attempt to untangle it.

"I'm pretty sure it untwists the other way," he commented, still grinning.

She glared, but took his suggestion and was soon landing on the floor after another failed try.

"You need to enter at an angle. Try laying on it diagonally," he advised.

"Can I take that to mean you actually know how to wield one of these things?" she asked hopefully.

"Yeah, here, let me show you."

No sooner was he settled into the hammock than Hanuu ran out of the room like a blaster bolt.

"Hey!" he yelled, vaulting out of the hammock and sprinting to the door. "Dammit woman, if you don't come back here and get some sleep, I'm just going to shoot you!"

"Cut it out Carth, you're exceeding your daily recommended dose of paranoia," Hanuu shouted back, hauling three dirty and tattered packs behind her. "I'm just thinking that I'll sleep on a pallet, and you can take one of the hammocks and we''l both be able to get some rest and all will be right with the world."

"So this is it, then?" he asked. Hanuu shot him a confused look, so he elaborated. "You're one of the Jedi, you have the combat skills of an elite special forces commando, and you speak something like twenty languages... but you can be defeated by a hammock?"

"It's not defeat. It's a strategic backwards advance," she corrected.

"Right..." he drawled.

"Oh, it's all part of my master plan," Hanuu assured him, turning to the offending fabric and shaking her fist at it. "You will rue the day you decided to dump my rear on the floor."

The hammock declined to comment.

"And for your information, I speak forty-seven languages, not twenty. Granted, eight of them are dead and have no redeemable value outside the world of academia, and about a dozen of the them are technically dialects and so don't really count... and one of them in Serrocan interpretive dance, but all together there's forty-seven of them and I'm proud of it!"

Carth couldn't help himself. He began to chuckle, first softly, then more loudly.

"Uh, Carth?" Hanuu asked warily. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing," he said. "I just figured out what you were as a respectable respected person."

"Oh?" she asked. "Do tell."

"You," he said, pausing for dramatic affect. "Were a teacher!"

She froze in shock, and he let out a great "Ha!" of triumph.

"Was not," she protested belatedly.

"Liar, liar, robes on fire," he chanted victoriously.

"Wow," she deadpanned viciously. "Just when I think you can't get any more juvenile..."

"Oh, don't start with me, professor," he retorted.

"I wasn't a teacher!"

"Sure you weren't," Carth assured her, patting her shoulder in what he thought was a very consoling manner, still grinning broadly. "I can just picture it, though- Hanuu, the mild-mannered schoolmarm..."

"Whoa! Cool those engines Carth!" she ordered. "Since when am I mild-mannered? Or anything even remotely resembling a schoolmarm?"

"Well, obviously, that's your alter ego," he explained.

She sniggered, shaking her hand slightly. "You," she declared. "Are such a geek."

"So says the schoolmarm."

She sighed, and crawled into her bed roll with a chagrined expression on her face. "I wasn't a teacher. I'll admit to being invited to give a few lectures and key-note speeches to linguists schools, but I never, ever, actually taught a class."

"Well, what were you then?"

Hanuu groaned. "Carth..." she repeated.

"Oh C'mon, Hanuu. We've gotten off Taris. Hell, we even got off Datooine. You did promise to tell me about you life as a respectable-"

"Respected person. Yes, I know," she sighed again. "But if you want the full story, it's going to take the entire five hours I'm supposed to be sleeping and then some."

"So don't tell me everything," Carth countered. "Just tell me what you did. Give me a job title."

Hanuu sighed a third time and said, grudgingly, in a very put-upon voice. "My official designation was 'Primary Ambassadorial Undersecretary to the Head of ROFR."

He spun around to stare at her in disbelief. She had her eyes closed and looked very grim.

"ROFR," he began slowly. "As in Republic Office of Foreign Relations?"

"Well, it certainly was the Rylothian Order of Free Ryl," she replied without opening her eyes.

"You were a diplomat?" he rephrased, in case there was something he was missing.

"Yes," she confirmed shortly. "Yes. And I was a good one, too."

Carth scrutinized her for a moment, and then asked, "How the hell did you end up as a smuggler of all things?"

Hanuu rolled over to face him and opened her eyes. "Carth, I thought we agreed I wasn't going to tell you everything tonight?"

"Okay, fair enough." Carth sighed. "Just answer me one thing."

Hanuu groaned and rolled back onto her back. "What?"

"You have no problem breaking laws, lying, or trying to wiggle your way out of promises," he prefaced, with special emphasis on that last part. Hanuu huffed, and he continued. "But Zaalbar's lifedebt to you... you defend that with your very being. What's the difference?"

Hanuu was silent for such a long time that Carth began to suspect that she was feigning sleep in order to avoid answering. But he was wrong.

"When Zaalbar swore himself to me, he literally placed his entire life in my hands. All of the potential he posses, for good or for ill, is mine to command," she paused, frowning. "That's not a promise, Carth. It's an alliance. And I place as much emphasis on honoring my alliances as you do on honoring your duty."

"Oh," Carth said, not entirely sure how to respond. After a minute he asked. "How do you differentiate between and alliance and... everything else?"

"An alliance is formed whenever you willingly take some responsibility for someone's well-being. My promise to you to make you trust me, for example, was an alliance."

"Oh," Carth repeated, shocked, and once again at a loss for words. What do you say to a declaration like that?

"Just so you know," he began finally. "I've made it my duty to make you take better care of yourself."

"I'd noticed," Hanuu chuckled. "The nagging's a little difficult to miss."

"It'll get a lot worse if you don't start getting some sleep soon sister," he threatened.

"Hey! You started this conversation, flyboy," she reminded him.

"Goodnight, Hanuu," he said pleasantly.

"Goodnight, pigman."

Carth was still grinning as he fell asleep.

* * *

Many, many thanks to Lady Tragic, who took on the noble and probably life-ending duty of becoming my beta. We who are about to type salute you! 


End file.
